Ever since China joined the World Trade Organization in November 2001, Chinese millennials craved knowledge about the world’s cultures. Tech-savvy youngsters turned to the internet to share foreign shows and movies.
The American sitcom Friends tremendously influenced a generation of Chinese youth. In 2002, a small group of fans started the online forum Friends6 (F6), the first of its kind in China. They translated and subtitled the entire series and provided free downloads online.
Their efforts meant Friends became one of the most popular American TV shows in China and an important learning tool for English learners. F6 lasted more than 15 years before shutting down on October 7, 2014.
More fansub groups popped up in the early 2000s. Among them, fans considered YYeTs, YDY (Garden of Eden), Ragbear and FRM as the “Top Four.” YYeTs, which was started in 2003 by a ChineseCanadian student, was the most influential. The group formed an independent online video-sharing forum in 2006 and was renamed Renren Yingshi in 2007.
In 2006, the American television series Prison Break became hugely popular in China after subtitled versions from several fansub groups circulated on the Chinese internet. The phenomenal popularity of Prison Break heralded a golden age for fansub groups.
In 2009, the then State Administration of Radio, Film and Televi-sion (SARFT) issued a regulation that banned the dissemination of pirated movies and TV shows on the Chinese internet. By the end of the year, 111 online streaming websites and fansub groups, including YDY and BTChina, were shut down.
To survive, Renren Yingshi turned to a new strategy: sharing open courses offered by prestigious universities.
Since 2010, translators with Renren Yingshi have subtitled open courses from Harvard and Yale, such as Tal Ben-Shahar’s 2006 course on positive psychology, Michael Sandel’s exploration of justice from 2008, Ben Polak’s lectures on game theory and Craig Wright’s course on music appreciation.
Millions watched their open course translations. In 2011, the State media People’s Daily lauded the website as “a preacher of knowledge in the internet age.”
However, the website eventually returned to sharing pirated content. After it was temporarily closed in 2014, Renren Yingshi, previously a non-profit organization, began selling ads, subscriptions and hard drives that contained pirated content.
Renren Yingshi was not singled out. More than 20 influential fansub groups were shut down in the last five years.
Authorities kicked off a harsh crackdown on piracy in June 2020. By year’s end, police had closed 2,884 websites and apps offering pirated content and deleted 3.23 million download links.
On December 12, 2019, police in Shanxi Province took down SCG (ShengChengGroup), a fansub group founded in 2005. With more than two million registered users, SCG subtitled and shared smash TV shows including Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Two Broke Girls, as well as The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter film series.
Zhu Xing, 33, a member of fansub group Ragbear from 2008 to 2009, told NewsChina: “I don’t have any friends willing to volunteer to translate for fansub groups anymore. Most of us were university students at the time and had lots of energy and passion. But now we have to feed our families and have no time for it. Also, as the country’s control over copyright strengthens, more people are unwilling to set foot in that gray area.”
“Fansub groups belong to a particular period of history, just as swordsmen only existed in ancient times and Batman only appears in Gotham. The history of the internet will judge the fansub groups fairly,” Zhu added.