A Rosetta Tombstone

A number of people have written in the last few days to ask what happened to the subtitled videos of Col. Allen West’s speech on February 19th at the launch of the Freedom Defense Initiative.

As most readers will remember, immediately after the FDI event, Vlad Tepes and I mounted a Rosetta Stone project to subtitle Col. West’s speech in as many languages as possible. Our Rosetta Stone team did the translations, and then Vlad subtitled the videos and uploaded them to Vimeo. Over a two-month period the speech was made available in a total of fifteen languages.

The videos remained online until a few days ago, when someone — presumably the organizers of the event or the videographer — complained to Vimeo that their copyright on the Col. West videos had been violated. Vimeo responded by taking down Vlad’s entire channel — eliminating many other useful and important videos along with those of Col. West.

We know that Allen West himself had no problem with our project, since he sent us a number of emails thanking us for the subtitled videos and praising our efforts.

All of the videos and posts linked lavishly to both FDI and the organizers, and we would have linked the videographer if we could have discovered his or her name. No one sent us any complaints or requests to take down the videos — for two months they were available for viewing, and then suddenly they were gone.

This action was unfortunate and destructive. And it’s not just the sad waste of hundreds of man-hours; the translated versions of Col. West’s speech helped his words escape beyond the borders of the United States. They let the world know that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton do not represent us, that America has capable leaders who understand the global threat presented by Islam. Col. West’s words inspired people in Denmark, Russia, France, and at least twelve other countries.

Our work has not been lost entirely, however, because the time-stamped translations are still available — along with the defunct videos — at the original posts. For example, you can read the Dutch and Italian here, or the Hebrew and German here.

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Our Rosetta Stone projects, both text and video, will continue. The next time we commit all those hours to a video operation, we’ll make sure to get advance permission from anyone who might claim copyright.

One of the Rosetta Stone text projects is still ongoing: Geert Wilders’ speech at the House of Lords in London on March 5th. There are three languages remaining, and they will be posted sometime in the next few days. We’re fortunate that Mr. Wilders doesn’t object to our publishing his translated words.

Now I’d like to celebrate the Rosetta Stone team.
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Over the last two years it has grown to include roughly sixty translators and two video wizards. Vlad and Kitman handle the editing, subtitling, uploading, and maintenance of the video channels. Together they run Counterjihad Films — which unfortunately has been decimated by the loss of Vimeo.

Below is a list of active translators, to whom we owe a profound debt of gratitude for their tireless efforts. This list was compiled somewhat hastily, so please contact me if I left anybody out:

Albanian		Ilia Toli, Ph.D.		Hungarian		DC
Bulgarian		Georgi Dimitrov				Somogyi Zoltan
Czech		Czech Infidel				Zoltan
		Margita		Italian		Gaia
		Marian CZ		Japanese		Jiraiya
Danish		Anne-Kit		Norwegian		Kepiblanc
		Henrik Ræder Clausen				HTP
		Kepiblanc				Jun Girl
		Kitman				Zylark
		Signe		Polish		GeKo
		TB				Green Infidel
		Zonka				Joonas
Dutch		Bolleke		Portuguese		Luigi
		H. Numan				MJF
		Michiel Mans				Rui
		VH		Romanian		Armance
Finnish		KGS				Costin
		Markus				Rebellious Vanilla
		Vasarahammer		Russian		DarLink
French		François				Peter1
		Gandalf of VV&D		Serbian		Gray Falcon
		l’échappée belle				Witch-King of Angmar
		Robert Marchenoir		Spanish		Llew
German		ESW		Swedish		Cavatus
		JLH				Kepiblanc
		Kepiblanc				Henrik W.
		Liz				LN
Hebrew		DarLink				Peter L.
				Tagalog		UC
				Welsh		Saxeus

It is truly an honor to co-ordinate the work of so many dedicated and selfless people who volunteer to work long hours in the cause of liberty.

My heartfelt thanks to the entire team.