In recent years, the booming short drama industry has fostered a large number of translation enthusiasts and teams. With excellent language skills, they devote their spare time to carefully translating and creating subtitles. However, shortly after uploading these subtitles to official websites, their painstaking work is often stolen and appears on pirated websites.
Individuals or groups with ulterior motives lurk in forums or translation groups, easily stealing these subtitle files. Some enthusiasts or teams lack copyright awareness and upload subtitles to official websites without applying technical protections, creating opportunities for these pirated websites to steal the content.
These unpaid labors of love become free resources for pirated websites to profit from. Effectively combating these rampant practices has become one of the most severe challenges in the wave of global short dramas.
Why Pirated Websites Are So Fast
Technical Overwhelming Advantage
Pirated websites utilize automated crawler programs to monitor official platforms and websites around the clock. Once new content is released, they immediately scrape the videos. Beyond directly scraping subtitles using technology, gray market channels also contribute.
These pirates lurk in paid communities, acquire high-quality videos or subtitle files, and resell them for profit. Weak copyright awareness among some users fuels this behavior, as purchasing official videos or subtitle files at low prices presents a significant temptation.
Finally, the rapid development of AI technology provides them with convenient access to official videos, drastically lowering the technical barriers and time required.
Business Model of Pirated Websites
Pirated websites operate on the fringes of the law, thus conducting their activities cautiously. Once discovered and reported, they quickly abandon the original domain name, lie low for a period, and then resurface with a new domain when the situation cools down. This makes it difficult for rights safeguarding to keep pace with their infringement, increasing the difficulty and time cost for official rights safeguarding.
These websites host their servers in countries or regions with weak copyright enforcement to avoid direct legal strikes, well aware of the significant challenges involved in cross-border copyright enforcement.
Ultimately, pirated websites profit not only from content obtained through unofficial channels but also by displaying a large number of advertisements on their web pages, monetizing the traffic they attract.
Official measures require building technical defenses to effectively curb the rampant activities of pirated websites.
Digital Watermarking Technology
Digital watermarks are divided into visible and invisible types. The former includes platform logos, user IDs, etc., serving primarily as a deterrent. Direct reuse requires covering or obscuring the watermark, which is technically less difficult.
Invisible watermarks embed unique identifiers into the audio or video, undetectable to human senses but extractable via technical tools. This is one of the most effective technologies for tracking the source of leaks.
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Utilizing DRM technologies like Widevine and FairPlay encrypts videos to prevent downloading and screen recording. However, this may come at the cost of sacrificing some users’ experience.
It must be acknowledged that no technical protection is absolutely secure. The potential for high profits drives pirates to find ways to circumvent these technologies. The core value of technical measures lies in increasing the cost and delaying the availability of pirated content, buying valuable time and gathering evidence for subsequent legal actions.
The Dual Challenges of Cross-Border Enforcement
Uncertainty in Legal Application
The location where the infringement occurs, where the infringing result manifests, the server location, and the nationality of the pirates might all fall under different jurisdictions. Determining which country's laws apply becomes a primary hurdle for rights holders.
Complexities in Evidence Collection and Notarization
Proving infringement requires a complex evidence collection process. Furthermore, the notarization procedures must meet the requirements of the target country's courts. This entire process is characterized by high costs and long cycles.
Inefficiencies in Law Enforcement Cooperation
Even if a rights holder wins a lawsuit in one country, the judgment needs recognition and enforcement in the country where the pirated website's server is located. This requires cross-border judicial assistance, which is often inefficient, making it difficult to guarantee positive outcomes.
Imbalance Between Enforcement Costs and Benefits
For a single platform, investing significant time and resources to gather evidence and against numerous pirated websites is economically prohibitive. This cost-benefit imbalance contributes to a situation where "the law does not punish numerous offenders."
Strategic Defense for Platforms
Integrate different digital watermarks during content production to distinguish sources from various channels and partners.
Collaborate with professional third-party copyright monitoring companies to leverage AI technology for 24/7 monitoring of major global websites and platforms.
Foster synergy between platform operations and legal teams to effectively combat infringement. Initiating focused lawsuits against typical, high-traffic, and widely damaging pirated websites can serve to deter the entire piracy ecosystem.
Finally, platforms can ally with users, educating them about intellectual property, informing them of the harms of infringement, and encouraging viewership through official channels. Specifically, offering rewards to users who report pirated websites can be effective.
Competition in the short drama industry is not merely about quality content and traffic; it is equally about the protection of intellectual property rights. IPR protection is a protracted battle requiring coordinated efforts from official technology, legal safeguards, and user’s copyright awareness.
Only by effectively combating piracy and pirated websites can a favorable creative environment be provided, the fruits of creators' labor be respected, and the long-term, healthy development of the short drama industry be ensured.
