Over-thinker. Easily distracted by shiny things. Oooh. Shiny.
Yes, they do!
No idea about the end of the monopoly, though. There’s more of a strong suspicion that DF just has the rights to the majority of CJ E&M offerings, which includes tvN (and OCN, which also explains why you’ll find a lot of those shows primarily on DF as well) and may pass on some that they think might not be worthwhile.
Yeah, they have an exclusive deal with tvn (for a few years, I think?). So it’s weird to me that they don’t even have a place-holder page set-up for Pied Piper. There’s nothing when I search for it. It’s not listed in their “Coming Soon” section (which lists a lot dramas, even ones that won’t air for a couple of months). On the random off-chance they don’t have exclusive rights for this particular drama, I have tried searching for it being subbed elsewhere but nope. There’s only a fanpage on Viki that’s pretty much dead.
So I have no idea why Dramafever is skipping this one, especially since it’s airing right after Cheese in the Trap ended so it’s not like they weren’t expecting it. More’s the pity, too, because I really enjoyed the first ep and knowing this production crew, it’s only going to get more intense.
There’s deeper history with how DF has usurped the fandom-run drama subbing community that I won’t really get into here, but just be aware that it’s there as an undercurrent to the frustrations with DF in general.
The subs themselves are… okay, I guess… but it’s more of a “here’s the gist” instead of a faithful interpretation. Like if you’re going to read the Bible and are happy with “The Message” translation, which makes for a good read, but isn’t as accurate as, say, the ESV translation (which maybe some don’t like because it’s not as easy/fun to read).
There’s often elements where the subbers decide how to translate something to interpret a scene but they actually are wrong by taking away from the actual wording. The Korean language is delightful in the way it plays with wording (so many puns!) and also there’s a vagueness to the language which often leads to misconceptions that further plots. I’ll direct you to my proverbial straw that broke my camel’s back (and let’s just say I never in my wildest dreams imagined I’d be arguing on the internet about condoms in a kdrama, but there you go).
Personally, I’ve always been fond of the fan-subs. My first encounter with dramas was through the WITHS2 community (and you’ll notice that on a lot of the pre-2011 dramas, DF uses fan-subs taken from communities such as those), and today my preference are the Viki subs. Of course, fan subs aren’t perfect, either, but I feel that they work hard to keep true to the original wording and intent of scenes than the so-called professional subbing of DF.
I always really want to support DF just because they’ve helped to make dramas so much more accessible, but their business practices, attempts at monopolies, and mistakes in subbing give me serious pause.
The Obsessive Dilettante 