Completly translated novel - When expires it‘s license?

LabelleArabesque

How much time do you have to still buy JNC novels, which are already completly translated until it‘s license expires? Does anyone know that?

_08

tl;dr: normally a license lasts about 5 years and then it may or may not be prolonged. Nothing is guaranteed and even ~5 year part may be totally off if contracts are done that way.

I should probably just link JNC founder's posts: 1 2 3.
And a bit from premium only forums:

We will continue to allow redownloads of your purchased premium epubs for as long as our license for those volumes is valid. Our licenses with Hobby Japan are generally 5 years long.
I will make ultra sure to email everyone well in advance of any of our licenses expiring reminding them to download their premium epubs and make a local backup, if that ever happens.

Paul Nebeling

Just my $0.02, but as long as a JNC-licensed title is making more money than the cost of generating a new licensing contract, why wouldn't the Japanese license holder renew the license? That just seems like good business sense to me.

hopebestman

@_08 is there a reason for that? I mean after contract expire i can understand NOT selling but at least for people who already bought that book , should able to access their books. Like "steam" , time to time , they stop selling spesific games but people who bought them , can access in steam servers. I didnt buy books yet in JNC so i dont really care however , still intersting question tho.

Rahul Balaggan

@hopebestman

The contracts are most likely written in such a way that when the license expires all redemption options also expire.

You brought up steam and that probably works for them, but video game licensing and book licensing are far too different to accurately compare.

stardf29

@rahul-balaggan I'm guessing you bought the books in question, so if I may ask: is New Life+ still available for you to download?

Paul Nebeling

@hopebestman With the notable exception of marriage, I've NEVER seen a contractual agreement with NO date of termination. That includes the extremely one-sided ones called military enlistments. So yes, something as mundane as a book licensing agreement would be time limited. Even in the U.S., things like copyright recapture provisions have turned "lifetime sales" of intellectual property rights into long-term licensing agreements.

jpwong

@stardf29 New Life+ is still available to download, but I don't think the license has actually expired on that one, more like the Japanese publisher asked everyone to stop selling it due to the controversy surrounding the author.

hopebestman

@paul-nebeling idk spesific laws so please excuse my ignorance. I am more of a gamer than reader. Couple years ago , steam get sued in France(most prob in France). About re-selling their games in their platform. Those are digital product so steam not allowed re-selling thier games. Steam said "we are renting our games in life time , so they cant sell renting product" however Steam still lost that one. Thats why i was thinking if i buy a book digital or paper , i want that books belongs to me. Even Valve's headquarters in US. , France still do some stuff. When i checked JNC X Book's page , it says "buy book" , so maybe not now because JNC not popular as Steam , but in the future that could cause problem. Because i am buying the book.

IF JNC's buying policy is like a renting , they should change the buy button as renting. Because like i said , that cause problem in the future.

PS:Like i said , i dont know anything about laws , even in my country's laws , so dont hit me so much.

Rahul Balaggan

@stardf29 sorry I didn’t respond but it is what @jpwong said.

Thomask

@hopebestman said in Completly translated novel - When expires it‘s license?:

@paul-nebeling idk spesific laws so please excuse my ignorance. I am more of a gamer than reader. Couple years ago , steam get sued in France(most prob in France). About re-selling their games in their platform. Those are digital product so steam not allowed re-selling thier games. Steam said "we are renting our games in life time , so they cant sell renting product" however Steam still lost that one. Thats why i was thinking if i buy a book digital or paper , i want that books belongs to me. Even Valve's headquarters in US. , France still do some stuff. When i checked JNC X Book's page , it says "buy book" , so maybe not now because JNC not popular as Steam , but in the future that could cause problem. Because i am buying the book.

IF JNC's buying policy is like a renting , they should change the buy button as renting. Because like i said , that cause problem in the future.

PS:Like i said , i dont know anything about laws , even in my country's laws , so dont hit me so much.

This is part of the problem I have with certain cloud services.

Example. Amazon. If you’ve unbuy the book through kindle, technically you would loose access if/when amazon goes under (assuming the tech for loading the apps goes down).

Sony Ebooks shutdown a couple years ago. I had some 20+ novels on it. If I loose those files, I’m screwed. Truthfully I’ve had at least TWO book series (ebooks) shutdown on me. One was bought by kobo I think? Unfortunately my books somehow didn’t get ported over to their service. Meh.

More recently there was one, or two movie streaming services shut down. I had purchased one of the Spider-Man movies on it. (You remember those DVD/blue ray/digital package specials? Yeah that). It shut down in 2018/2019.

However with JNC, you’ve got your choice. Purchase it at regular e-tail, or, purchase here on their own site via the premium purchase. Allowing you to move it to whatever app you deign to use at any given time.

(Yes, I know caliber exists, but I’m assuming no guarantees that it’ll always work)

stardf29

@hopebestman said in Completly translated novel - When expires it‘s license?:

@paul-nebeling idk spesific laws so please excuse my ignorance. I am more of a gamer than reader. Couple years ago , steam get sued in France(most prob in France). About re-selling their games in their platform. Those are digital product so steam not allowed re-selling thier games. Steam said "we are renting our games in life time , so they cant sell renting product" however Steam still lost that one. Thats why i was thinking if i buy a book digital or paper , i want that books belongs to me. Even Valve's headquarters in US. , France still do some stuff. When i checked JNC X Book's page , it says "buy book" , so maybe not now because JNC not popular as Steam , but in the future that could cause problem. Because i am buying the book.

IF JNC's buying policy is like a renting , they should change the buy button as renting. Because like i said , that cause problem in the future.

PS:Like i said , i dont know anything about laws , even in my country's laws , so dont hit me so much.

Books bought on JNC's site are not "rented". Once you download them, they are yours to keep, forever. There is no DRM on them, which is what other retailers use that could potentially allow them to "take back" a book (or game) that you had previously bought from them.

The ability to download a given JNC book might go away for one reason or another, but as long as you've already downloaded it, nothing will happen to that download. Of course, the responsibility would be on you to protect your downloaded book because you can't re-download it, but that's the same as protecting a physical book you bought that has gone out of print.

hopebestman

@stardf29 i understand that. what i am saying is , even after their lisences expired , i should able to access what i bought , where i bought. They dont have to keep selling but people who already bought should able to access until JNC get shut down.

stardf29

@hopebestman What you're asking for is basically the same as saying that, if you bought a physical book from a bookstore and that book goes out of print, you should be able to go back to that bookstore and get another copy of that book, printed just for you. That's not how "ownership" works.

If you download the book, it's yours. You have full access to it, whenever, wherever, for the rest of this earth's lifespan as long as you don't lose that downloaded file (and any backup copies you make of it). That is "ownership", and part of being an "owner" is that the owner is responsible for not losing the things they own. The fact that you can re-download books as long as the licenses are active is not part of that "ownership"; it is simply a bonus service offered by JNC.

(Worth noting that Sol Press also offers DRM-free downloads of some of their digital books on their store, but you are actually limited to 10 downloads per purchase.)

hopebestman

@stardf29 i am just saying , in gaming industry , digital ownership works like that. I didnt bought book from here and alsı i dont know exact rules. However , i am giving examples from real events about digital products. France brought some rules about that and in future , they could implay other digital products. You could also say books and games are not samething but in my opinion they are... as products at least. DRM-free is nice touch however , able to access your product is the main reason people buying digital. You dont have to worry to lose , you can reset your pc but you can download anytime you want , however you want.

I am not trying to blame someone or saying that thing is bad , this thing is good. I am just saying , there are lots of companies doing the samething different ways. But in the future some of those "different ways" could cause legal problems.

i.e steam and france lawsuit.

also that lawsuit technically not about accessing games(products) , its about re-selling the games but this is a proof , things could cause problems in the future.

smashman42

@hopebestman you can't legislate that a company won't go broke and not pay for their servers, making the game or novel or whatever re-downloads disappear.

DRM free makes it as much like a paper book or an old game on CD/DVD with no BS needing a live net connection crap - you own it 110% and if you lose it (scratch the game CD/DVD, drop the book into the toilet, or lose your backups of the DRM free ebook) you're shit out of luck. Except JNC lets you download it again while they have the licence, which is the equivalent of a book publisher replacing your toilet book or game publisher replacing your scratched CD/DVD, which would never, ever happen.

Are you saying along with the reselling your digital items the Steam/France lawsuit also forces Steam to let you reinstall stuff you've bought there that's been taken off Steam for new purchasers?

So is the issue that once the licence from the original rights holder is gone, JNC can't offer the download as they aren't allowed to by the Japanese rights holder any longer - so you're saying JNC could get in trouble for that because the Japanese laws don't line up with French laws or whatevs? So basically to not break one law, they'd have to break another?

myskaros

@hopebestman said in Completly translated novel - When expires it‘s license?:

i am just saying , in gaming industry , digital ownership works like that.

No, it doesn't work like that. Someone still needs to host the file and keep track of the fact that you bought/own it and allow you to download it. You're still relying on some business to provide that service to you.

Regardless of what laws exist, if Steam went out of business, who is going to spend the time, money, and resources in order to give you eternal access to your games? The French government?

Village Idiot

Can't you just get a 32gb USB stick and load all your JNC premium epubs to it for safekeeping?

hopebestman

@Village-Idiot google drive could work too :D

@myskaros unless company shut down it should be work like that.But until company shutsdown many companies works like that. For that , you should able to trust the company. Nowadays EpicGames made big opening but i dont know that company will stay or not. If i remember correctly Origin(EA) stopped supportRed Alert 2 on their servers after 10+ years and deleted owners library. After that , owners got mad and it become huge problem for the company. I dont know what happend after that but if company still active , shuting down the support x product cause problem. Also steam time to time stops selling some games but if you bought the game before that , you can download and play that game even after steam stops selling that game.

@smashman42 , @Thomask gave us an example. In his case , Sony Ebooks shutdown and now he cant access his books.

Sony Ebooks shutdown a couple years ago. I had some 20+ novels on it. If I loose those files, I’m screwed. Truthfully I’ve had at least TWO book series (ebooks) shutdown on me. One was bought by kobo I think? Unfortunately my books somehow didn’t get ported over to their service. Meh.

More recently there was one, or two movie streaming services shut down. I had purchased one of the Spider-Man movies on it. (You remember those DVD/blue ray/digital package specials? Yeah that). It shut down in 2018/2019.

Which is a problem but unfortunately we cant do anything about it.

There are many companies like bookwalker , amazon etc. depends on your choise , you could pick one trust worthy(your trust) company which wont shutdown soon (which i trust steam in gaming area) , you can buy from those companies and you can access when ever you want.

DRM-free is really nice touch. Some companies wont give that option. Couple years ago "Telltale Games" shutdown and you couldnt able to access their games in their store. In their store , games were DRM-free also :) but still they shutdown. However , if you bought the game in another platform which is still active , you can play , access or do whatever with it.

That lawsuit was just an example about US. I ment , even companies headquarter in X country , it doesnt mean , other countries laws wouldnt effect them.

PS: I am just giving example in steam because like i said before , i am a gamer more than a reader. Also every company' policy could be different. That is also a fact as well. I am just giving real-life examples about digital ownerships. That doesnt mean every company has to do samething , or will be effect about same problem.

All i wanted to say , its really sucks cant able to access my books after X years later in X company' servers. I can understand after lisencens expires not selling the books but owners still should able to access their books. Nothing more , nothing less.

This company' system works like that , there is nothing i can do about it. But it doesnt mean i cant complain. I just choose that , not buying that company.

Lastly , sorry for my grammer mistakes (if i have) , i tried to be understandable as much as possible.

Rahul Balaggan

The main point of this topic has been addressed, and we have veered off topic by a bit, as such I will be locking this topic down.