Today, I got a message from a user called drexam. He said that he found my Arabic translation good and would like me to work on his website and he would pay me. I go to his website and it is clearly a piracy streaming website. I reply that I would not work for him since I find it illegal since they steal the episodes from torrent website without paying for the rights and I don’t want dirty/illegal money (though it was tempting, I stand with my morals and religious values). He lashed out calling me rude and shameless. He also claimed that they work for VIU (where they get the English subs) and their subs are featured on VIU and on their illegal website.
How are people like that allowed on Viki? The Arabic community here is dying and those people come and take away the good subbers. Can other companies come and tempt Viki subbers like that?
Yes of course they can and they will. Legal ones too. I’m a professional translator in real life, and if someone sees my work here and wants me to translate professionally (for money), I’ll joyfully accept.
This doesn’t mean I won’t keep volunteering on Viki, this is my hobby.
People are particularly tempted by those offers if they are already in a bad financial state. So, in a way, I understand why those sites thrive. At the end of the day, it’s a personal decision whether you work on those sites or not. Just as much as it’s a personal decision to work on Viki.
Those sites don’t thrive because they pay translators. Most of them don’t anyway. They steal the already made subs by Viki, the late DF, Kocowa and Netflix. Only one or two go to the trouble of providing their own translations, in order to be faster and draw an audience.
No, the reason those sites thrive is mainly because of the stupid regional restrictions that ban people from watching dramas even if they’re willing to pay.
Yes, it’s also of course because of those who don’t have money to pay 5 dollars per month to watch dramas. And those who don’t want to. But regional restrictions bring all the rest of us there as well. The drama producers and TV channels should stop and ponder this a bit more seriously.
I agree. The regional restrictions is the most annoying thing. Distribution companies just want to profit by charging for each region, but by doing that, they are fueling the illegal streaming websites.
However, what I find to be the issue is that alleged people working for VIU, who are in a direct competition with Viki, create accounts and lure Viki’s subbers. VIU is clearly winning in this case, since they are paying people and Viki is just losing translators.
@camiille Is creating accounts just to recruit people for illegal streaming websites or competing streaming services against Viki’s guidelines?
Hi @cherrypie94,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Marketing, advertising, spamming or soliciting of outside services or websites goes against Viki Community Guidelines. To report someone for failing to follow the guidelines, please follow these instructions for how to report a user. A member of our moderation team can then investigate further and take the appropriate action.
Best,
Camille
Viki Community Team