What the tittles above says. I was interested to watch some K dramas that it seems that are not licenced for my region ( Greece) but their description says that they are fully subtitled in the language of my region. ( Greek)
Can someone explain to me this oxymoron? Do the translation teams work for shows that don’t have licence to be shown in certain areas or those dramas lost their license on the go?
Someone wrote that it might be a bug. I simply use a VPN and can now watch shows not available or has been listed as Coming soon for months.
It might be an older show that has lost its license. It’s the same for me with many K & C dramas that are bit older, with K dramas even with newer ones. It seems to me that for Europe many K dramas aren’t available.
Regional restrictions in the last couple of years are usually valid for both the viewers and the QCs who translate. And since it’s hard to translate using VPN, my guess is the show had at first the licence to your region, but then lost it.
As others have said, many shows used to have a license which has now expired.
The big problem is that in some of them we had finished the translation but not the editing, so now we are stuck with the unedited, bad subtitles, and we are becoming ρεζίλι των σκυλιών*, without being at fault!
An example is Beethoven Virus. I went in one day to start the editing and I found out that the license was revoked. Now there is no way for me, vpn or other, for me to access it to work on it. And to think that I am the Channel Manager. I cannot even unlock or lock the episodes.
* “Laughing stock of dogs” One of the many juicy Greek idioms.
Why aren’t available?? It is not that they are that popular in order to exist some sort of competition between tv channels and streaming platforms for the licenses.
I don’t have access to the episodes in order to watch them with or without subtitles and I doubt that the Greeks that might watch these series from abroad are in need of Greek subtitles in any form.
I started the thread just because I was wondering how was even possible to exist series that are already subtitled in Greek without being licensed for the region.
Wait, why are you saying this, didn’t you read my reply?
I, and everybody else, explained that these now restricted shows WERE available until a few months ago. That’s why they were subtitled and Greek viewers watched them with no problems. But then the license expired and was not renewed, and that’s how they became restricted.
Of course we wouldn’t go through the trouble to subtitle shows which nobody can watch (apart from Greek-Americans who can watch in English anyway)
Yes I read your reply, I’ve just commented on how surrealistic is this situation. Those who are licensed to watch the series don’t need the Greek subtitles and those who need the subtitles don’t have access to the series! LOL
The answer is that, unfortunately, Greece and Greek audience counts as less than peanuts for them.
They should buy EU wide licenses. Even when something isn’t subbed into local languages, viewers could still watch it with English subs.
PS:
Today I found - again - a K drama that sounds interesting to me but is blocked like in most cases.
I’m sure there is a reason for it but it escapes me; why oh why not just sell license to anyone who wants to pay? With all the free illegal streaming websites and torrent sites where we can watch many of the shows for free, why not take our money instead of saying No and force us to go to illegal sites or use vpn? 
It’s all just so silly and denying license is sooo last millenium 
That’s exactly what they do. They sell licenses to the highest bidder.
Sometimes they sell a license for Europe to Netflix and a license to the US to Viki, and a license to Asia and other places to X, Y, Z. So it’s not worldwide for one streaming site, but each site has its own share of the pie.
When there was DF, it often got the exclusive license for the US because there was no DF in Europe anyway. As there is no Ondemand, as there is no Kocowa. (Nobody seems to care about Europe, we are numerically weaker)
Sometimes they sell the same region license to two different streaming sites, so they both (or all three) have it. But that’s more rare nowadays.
Yes, they license on viki for only some countries and to other websites for other countries. But since we can use a vpn or illegal site I still think they should have redone the way they sell licenses as this is reduntant.
I think there are a lot of series which are not licensed in Europe at all, to any streaming site.
At least some of the Chinese stations have own Youtube channels (verified) with some of their series. Some are already with subs on the video file, some are open for cc subs.
I don’t know all the titles and didn’t watch them yet bc my VIKI watch list is already overfilled with dramas, but from my quick look impression the titles aren’t 100% the same.
I’ve tried and been unsuccessful using Nord to watch Nirvana in Fire with the (previous) subs. Is there a country from which you can see it? B/c dubbed 
I’m in Sweden and Nirvana in Fire is available to me. I tested with my VPN with a USA ip and it’s restricted. I then tested with a German ip and it’s available again.
So check what country your vpn ip is from. As for subs I don’t know because I have not seen that drama (yet).