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What is the motivation to run this non profit site? I can not believe the motivation can simply be to get subtitles to watch movies personally. I suspect this i

What is the motivation to run this non profit site? I can not believe the motivation can simply be to get subtitles to watch movies personally. I suspect this is not really non profit as there the site supports ads. My guess is the owner is making decent money via ads. To the readers of this comment, if you can make a rough calculation of the ad revenue with good assumptions to validate or invalidate my theory, that would be amazing. Thanks HN

erklik 5y ago
> I can not believe the motivation can simply be to get subtitles to watch movies personally Why can't it be? Does everything require a money motive? Is it impossible that people want to do something good?
- szszrk 5y ago
  Well, not when licensed entertainment is involved. Subtitles may sound harmless but are enough to start a court battle. This happened in Poland with a similar site. I would not dare to claim that authors motives and all actions were clean and done in the open, but for sure they were targeted by various media groups for copyright infringement just because of plain subtitles. You need resources to deal with that and it's not gonna be a clean fight.
- lawtalkinghuman 5y ago
  > Does everything require a money motive? On HN, apparently. See the recent thread on Wordle. The reality is likely to be: they make a very small amount from ads and user donations that might, if they're lucky, cover the costs of hosting. The warez scene is a subculture and community for the people who participate in it. It is depressing that HN participants are so often mystified by the idea people might be motivated by intrinsic or social factors to engage in peer-based production (whether legal or not) when so many of the companies they run or work for exist only because of peer-based production efforts like Linux and other FOSS software.
  - throwaway834343 5y ago
    I should have been more clearer. Please see my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29991505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29991505 for clarification. I am glad to see comments like yours at HN honestly.
  - johndoeee 5y ago
    > The reality is likely to be: they make a very small amount from ads and user donations that might, if they're lucky, cover the costs of hosting Opensubtitles has a VIP program at $15 a year. It's quite easy to find the person who runs the site and, according to their CV, this is basically their job. That'd make Opensubtitles a for-profit piracy site, i guess.
    - m000 5y ago
      > according to their CV, this is basically their job. That'd make Opensubtitles a for-profit piracy site, i guess. Guess what: Non-profit != for-free && Non-profit != for-a-loss. If in order for opensubtitles to fulfill its envisioned role needs full-time attention, it is legit to pay yourself or hire an employee, paid by the ad and or subscription money. That's what also happens on all registered non-profit organizations.
    - lawtalkinghuman 5y ago
      Yeah, I saw it had a subscription model for VIP users. I'm guessing they're not getting Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates level rich off it though.
    - k4rli 5y ago
      Subtitles aren't piracy in any way though. Kind of similar to legality of torrent sites but even less questionable.
      - apetresc 5y ago
        I don't think they're implying the subtitles themselves are piracy, but the users of opensubtitles.org are overwhelmingly using them for pirated media. The subs are all indexed against scene versions of the video files (as you can tell from their names), and that's what most users are using it for. After all, streaming services, DVDs, and other legitimate ways of consuming these shows/movies already come with subtitles. No, the 0.1% of subs for obscure indie shows that didn't have native subs doesn't change that.
- throwaway834343 5y ago
  I should have been more clearer. I can understand running a hobby site to chat with fellow hobbyists which is a motivation for socializing. In this case its pretty much static. I fail to understand the motivation.
causi 5y ago
These days a lot of the subtitle files actually have ads embedded in the text itself, either during the movie or at the beginning/end.
Grimburger 5y ago
I've only ever interacted with it after account setup year ago via a rpi running Kodi which automatically downloads subtitles now and then, unless specifically searching for different versions barely remember it exists. I hope they make money somehow but get the feeling it's mostly just a bunch of api leeches like myself.
FDSGSG 5y ago
Opensubtitles is definitely for-profit. They sell lots of ad space, including ads injected into the subs themselves.
nano9 5y ago
I don't understand such a website anyway. A website like OpenSubtitles seems like overkill for passing around text and timestamps. Why not use something like GitHub? Why couldn't the project simply be a big git repo? It would even be easier.
- Liquid_Fire 5y ago
  This is a little bit like saying Dropbox could just be a git repo. Yes, it could, but normal users don't know how to use git, and it adds features that git by itself doesn't provide. Not to mention having this on GitHub would probably get taken down almost instantly due to copyright infringement.
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  Because the text is ultimately copyrighted and it would get DCMAed immediately.
Markoff 5y ago
hahahaha, I know personally owner of the site and trust me it's VERY MUCH for profit site making him decent income for last 15 years living in Thailand travelling around world scubadiving and having fun it's not just ads, but also paid API access AFAIR nothing wrong with that, just not sure where you come with idea he would bother, if there would not be good money in it

erklik 5y ago

> I can not believe the motivation can simply be to get subtitles to watch movies personally Why can't it be? Does everything require a money motive? Is it impossible that people want to do something good?

szszrk 5y ago
Well, not when licensed entertainment is involved. Subtitles may sound harmless but are enough to start a court battle. This happened in Poland with a similar site. I would not dare to claim that authors motives and all actions were clean and done in the open, but for sure they were targeted by various media groups for copyright infringement just because of plain subtitles. You need resources to deal with that and it's not gonna be a clean fight.
lawtalkinghuman 5y ago
> Does everything require a money motive? On HN, apparently. See the recent thread on Wordle. The reality is likely to be: they make a very small amount from ads and user donations that might, if they're lucky, cover the costs of hosting. The warez scene is a subculture and community for the people who participate in it. It is depressing that HN participants are so often mystified by the idea people might be motivated by intrinsic or social factors to engage in peer-based production (whether legal or not) when so many of the companies they run or work for exist only because of peer-based production efforts like Linux and other FOSS software.
- throwaway834343 5y ago
  I should have been more clearer. Please see my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29991505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29991505 for clarification. I am glad to see comments like yours at HN honestly.
- johndoeee 5y ago
  > The reality is likely to be: they make a very small amount from ads and user donations that might, if they're lucky, cover the costs of hosting Opensubtitles has a VIP program at $15 a year. It's quite easy to find the person who runs the site and, according to their CV, this is basically their job. That'd make Opensubtitles a for-profit piracy site, i guess.
  - m000 5y ago
    > according to their CV, this is basically their job. That'd make Opensubtitles a for-profit piracy site, i guess. Guess what: Non-profit != for-free && Non-profit != for-a-loss. If in order for opensubtitles to fulfill its envisioned role needs full-time attention, it is legit to pay yourself or hire an employee, paid by the ad and or subscription money. That's what also happens on all registered non-profit organizations.
  - lawtalkinghuman 5y ago
    Yeah, I saw it had a subscription model for VIP users. I'm guessing they're not getting Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates level rich off it though.
  - k4rli 5y ago
    Subtitles aren't piracy in any way though. Kind of similar to legality of torrent sites but even less questionable.
    - apetresc 5y ago
      I don't think they're implying the subtitles themselves are piracy, but the users of opensubtitles.org are overwhelmingly using them for pirated media. The subs are all indexed against scene versions of the video files (as you can tell from their names), and that's what most users are using it for. After all, streaming services, DVDs, and other legitimate ways of consuming these shows/movies already come with subtitles. No, the 0.1% of subs for obscure indie shows that didn't have native subs doesn't change that.
throwaway834343 5y ago
I should have been more clearer. I can understand running a hobby site to chat with fellow hobbyists which is a motivation for socializing. In this case its pretty much static. I fail to understand the motivation.

causi 5y ago

These days a lot of the subtitle files actually have ads embedded in the text itself, either during the movie or at the beginning/end.

Grimburger 5y ago

I've only ever interacted with it after account setup year ago via a rpi running Kodi which automatically downloads subtitles now and then, unless specifically searching for different versions barely remember it exists. I hope they make money somehow but get the feeling it's mostly just a bunch of api leeches like myself.

FDSGSG 5y ago

Opensubtitles is definitely for-profit. They sell lots of ad space, including ads injected into the subs themselves.

nano9 5y ago

I don't understand such a website anyway. A website like OpenSubtitles seems like overkill for passing around text and timestamps. Why not use something like GitHub? Why couldn't the project simply be a big git repo? It would even be easier.

Liquid_Fire 5y ago
This is a little bit like saying Dropbox could just be a git repo. Yes, it could, but normal users don't know how to use git, and it adds features that git by itself doesn't provide. Not to mention having this on GitHub would probably get taken down almost instantly due to copyright infringement.
Mindwipe 5y ago
Because the text is ultimately copyrighted and it would get DCMAed immediately.

Markoff 5y ago

hahahaha, I know personally owner of the site and trust me it's VERY MUCH for profit site making him decent income for last 15 years living in Thailand travelling around world scubadiving and having fun it's not just ads, but also paid API access AFAIR nothing wrong with that, just not sure where you come with idea he would bother, if there would not be good money in it