Alternative title: Adding subtitles to legally owned media but I’d thought I’d try to go a little naughty and clickbaity.
Adding fan made subtitles is currently ‘kind of legal’ in Australia, apparently this year the law may change to disallow it and block all sites that provide fan-made subtitles like Australia did to block all torrenting sites (RIP TPB).
For now, it’s a grey area, but it’s one that is obviously less illegal compared to actual piracy.
Morally, I’m for this approach being legal, as it requires you to own the media legally and have somebody translate it.
Or you could just learn Japanese but this, obviously, takes a longer time.
A lot of people have been asking about watching Digimon movies with subtitles on the Digimon sub reddit and we all know there are illegal ways of doing so, but there are actually ways to do this a little more legally (again, grey area, but it’s only because apparently ‘having subtitles encourages piracy’ (imo, the exact opposite) and ‘the original script is still property of the original creator’ (even if the subtitles are translations?). Thanks Australia law system, you bunch of miserable old cunts.).
First of all, you’ll want to obviously purchase the DVD or BluRay. Sites like FromJapan and CDJapan or even eBay are good for this. Obviously, it should go without saying that your PC should either have a DVD or BluRay drive.
Then, you’ll want to use a website such as kitsunekko or SubDB or whatever one you find on Google to download your subtitle file. Typically these will be in SRT or ASS files. You may have to do your own leg work in terms of finding the subtitle files, but I assure you, they’ll be out there.
You’ll also want to download VLC or any software that allows you to add your own subtitles.
Now you’ve got your media, you’ve got your ASS, and you’ve got software to watch it, all you have to do is open VLC, go to ‘Video’ and then ‘Subtitle Track’, then ‘Open File..’, and finally, select that file.
Congratulations! You’re now doing something sort of legally.
Or just learn Japanese and then you can read the Manga too (it’s all really good).
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