There are cases (at least in Scandinavia) where the subtitles on a Norwegian subtitle site showed up on the Blueray version (noticeable due to huge cultural mistakes in the translation), when the Norwegian site clearly had subtitles first.

I'll start holding my breath for when the law will be applied equally on both sides.

Even if the subtitles are a translation?

There are usually many possible translations, and the words in translated subtitles were most likely never written anywhere by the dialog copyright holders. [and based on what I've seen, subtitles are often a rather .... loose ... translation to boot...]

edit: fixed analogy

I guess argument could be made that the actual site owner made money from ads (assuming there were ads on the site).

I realize that it is likely just as illegal according to today's copyright laws, but that something like this would warrant a police raid is just beyond me.

yeah, those word are a dumb concept.

The creator is still prohibited from distributing the work without securing a license from the copyright holder of the original work.

Yes. Even for a book, you have to buy the rights for your language/country to be able to legally put out a translation.

But seriously, that is a fascinating topic (copyright law as it applies to automated or real-time mutation & usage of existing content) that I've also thought about before..

I wonder if this will become a big enough issue in our lifetime to warrant legal intervention..

Oh right, selective justice.