For borderless media, translation is key

(CNN) -- As an anime fan in the United States, Krista Baker doesn't have much clout with studio heads in Japan. But if she did?

"I would love to see Japanese studios translating their own shows and releasing a subtitled version via the Internet around the same time that their show debuts on Japanese TV," says Baker, who edits a review site called Animetique.com.

In place of that, there are "fansubbers" -- enthusiasts who record and subtitle foreign TV shows or films into the local language, and then share them online via tools like BitTorrent. Some fansubbers run afoul of DVD distributors for tackling licensed shows; on the other hand, fansubbing helped grow the market for anime in North America, which distributors benefit from overall.

Baker's experiences with anime might prove a foreboding to a much larger trend: broadband users anywhere in the world can increasingly access all kinds of international content not intended for them -- and the implications of this are still being sorted out.

At Jaman.com, you can download flicks from almost anywhere, including more than 50 films from Asian locations such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. The video-oriented Web site YouTube is swarming with international ads and programming clips from around the world -- often raising copyrights violation complaints. You can watch TV via services such as JumpTV or Joost, including the Egyptian sitcom "Memoirs of a Modern Husband" ("Hekayat Zoug Mouaser").

"I think it is amazing how much international stuff is showing up," says professor Kim Gregson, a communications professor at Ithaca College in New York.

The potential benefits are myriad and significant. For media professionals, notes Gregson, foreign TV ads could be an inspirational source of "new techniques, new styles, new looks." Besides which, "there's something fascinating about how other countries advertise stuff ... the ads give us a window into the stores and trends in other countries that we might not have otherwise."

Greater access to foreign movies might help counteract the worst of Hollywood. "Too much of the cinema is white, Western, Hollywood-dominated, and purely adolescent-oriented escapism," says Christopher Sharrett, a professor of communication and film studies at Seton Hall University. It's important, he feels, to "have greater access to films made in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere."

Even watching an Egyptian sitcom can be an interesting cultural exploration. Not that online access to shows such as "Memoirs of a Modern Husband" will necessarily find much of an audience beyond, say, Middle East viewers living far from home.

For starters, there's competition. Foreign content is not the only kind of production becoming more readily available. So is domestic content from independent studios, which are also benefiting from new outlets online. "In the face of such a quantity of domestic programming," wonders Michael Rhys, a voice artist based in Japan, "how keen will people be to open themselves up the overseas content?"

Especially if there's no easy way to wade through that content. "You have to know where to look," says Gregson. "There are so many places now serving up video ... you have to figure out what their programming strengths are."

Much international content is simply not worth watching. The quality of Korean sitcoms might differ little from U.S. ones, notes Sharrett, who worries about a vast sea of mediocrity. Accessibility, he notes, has little to do with quality.

Then there are simple translation issues, as with anime. What if a Joost user in the China wants to follow "Memoirs of a Modern Husband"? So far on Joost, which is still in an (invitation-only) test phase, the show lacks even English subtitles.

Joost says it's working on possible solutions. (The company is only about a year old, but because its founders also started Kazaa and Skype, it warrants particular attention.) The service has community features and widgets that might enable translators to assist foreign viewers, though this is speculation.

There'd be plenty of legal obstacles to clear. A U.S. program already dubbed for a French audience might involve the content owner, the translation company, and the regional distributor all holding some kind of rights over the content.

"In the long run, Joost will have a sufficient base of localized programming, whether that is through subtitling or foreign language programming," says Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, executive vice president of content strategy and acquisition. "Joost will take maximum advantage of the community features available, while ensuring full protection of content owners' copyrights."

Whatever the final approach, Joost won't solve a more fundamental challenge. "From my point of view," says Michiru Yabu, a translator in Japan, "cultural differences are a bigger barrier -- your joke will most likely not be understood by other people who live in a different environment." E-mail to a friend