For the past week, SBS (one of the broadcasting stations in Korea) has been on the rampage of hunting down and suspending the accounts of members who had uploaded their videos. Some noted members include coolsmurf and gomdorii. There're probably lots more which I still don't know.
Anyway. SBS accused them of infringing and violating copyrights, yada yada, blah blah and all that jazz. The shows uploaded by them such as X-Man (which had ended its run few years ago) and Ya Shim Man Man (older seasons) were all deleted without warning.
In my opinion, to be fair, they ought to give them warning first. Why leh? Firstly, if it was not for these users, the non-Korean speaking people would not have a single clue about Korea. And they are talking about magnifying the hallyu wave. These people took time and effort to translate the Korean and add English subtitles to these shows so that people like me can actually watch it, understand it, enjoy it AND learn bits of Korean along the way. I say, if not for them, Korea's break into international market would have been much slower.
Fast forward a week. Now here's what happened. There was a rehearsal for the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony rehearsal. Before the real thing, media from all over the world are invited and allowed to see a sneak preview of the opening ceremony before the Games officially start. Embargo. Keep the information and news to yourself until the big guys say it's OK to spill.
SBS is now in hot soup over copyright infringement and embargo violation because they released a video of the rehearsal to the world. China is pissed for obvious reasons. Imagine how hard they have choreographed and practiced for the past years. And now half the world has already seen it before the real thing. That just kills the enthusiasm and surprise factor.
It's like you and your group members practiced so hard to prepare for a performance and you even kept the theme of your play a secret. You ask a few friends or people to come in and see your rehearsals. To give comments and tell them to publicize it. Then, someone goes and tell others the funny lines, punch lines, storyline and how it all ends. Wah lao, you won't get pissed ah?
If you ask me, I think it's plain ignorance and disrespect on SBS's part. No matter what they say about how they were just trying to heightening the enthusiasm among the people towards the coming Games, that does not justify your wrongdoing. If I am a poor woman who has 2 small children to feed and I steal bread from a bakery because I need to feed them, that does not justify that my act of stealing is not wrong. Stealing is wrong. Whatever intentions that is.
First SBS puts people's life into misery - both the people who have put in much effort to subtitle and make available videos, and those who can't get enough of these videos. Accusing others of copyright infringement. And now they're under fire for the same thing. Oh, the irony... it just kills.
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