Copyright Law

Subtitles and Meaning

By Andrew Raff, Esq.

Consumerist, Movies: Dumbed Down Subtitles Ruin US Release Of 'Let The Right One In': "What if you started to watch Let The Right One In, a highly acclaimed foreign film from last year, and you discovered the US release had been renamed Open Up!? That's sort of the experience consumers are having when watching the new release of the movie on DVD and Blu-ray. At some point between the theatrical release and the DVD release, the distributor replaced the original, nuanced English subtitles with dumbed-down ones."

What was the situation that led up to replacing the original subtitles with second-rate subtities? A licensing issue? Does the filmmaker have a claim against the distributor for mangling the original intent of the film with bad subtitles? Does the structure of film distribution contracts leave the filmmaker with any recourse? Is there a moral rights concern?

Full post as published by IPTAblog on March 24, 2009 (boomark / email).