What's the line between accepting money for translations and charging for translations?
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@drone205 The SonCon translation is coming out at over 7 per week even if you do not contribute to him through Patreon. I do not feel like it is machine translated at all. The length of each translation is significant, in my opinion. There are occasional mistakes that he corrects when people point them out and he recently got an editor to help him out.
Really the only potential downside that his personality rubs some people the wrong way, but as I've gotten to know the translator he feels like a very genuine individual that I trust.
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@fozzedout I actually don't think it's too strange that people could react differently to ip infringement when it's done out of goodwill than when it's motivated by greed. Afer all, Robin Hood is almost universally seen as a positive character. And I neither think nor I'm implying that every one who translate for free is some sort of hero while the ones who have a donate button are greedy bastards.
From a legal standpoint, here in Italy copyright laws also used to give harsher punishment when there was profit involved, so this kind of reasoning isn't far fetched. -
@fozzedout You say
If someone then copies either the book or the translation? It is the fault of the copier. Guess what, when you view something online, your computer makes a copy for rendering, making you the viewer the copier and also the thief. Not the translator.
but to use your phrase. Guess what, when upload something you are sending data from your computer to the internet and when you download something your computer is receiving data from the internet. The Translator is Uploading their Translation on the Internet for all to see, while the Reader is just downloading what was uploaded. It is illegal to upload pirated data but it is not illegal to download it. I have said in an earlier comment that I have problems when people twist words and situations to suit there own needs and agendas.
To again use your words
most people here are... morally flexible
I do not know if what you said was an intentional fabrication or if you were just ignorant, but I certainly know that you twisted the situation of Fan translations, since the readers are not Copying the translations. in your example, the translator would be mass producing their translation and giving or selling it to the masses.
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it is not illegal to download it
I hate this argument because, in truth, it's merely a concession of there being no good way to police downloaded data, not an admission that it is acceptable to download pirated data. You think an author who writes and sells books for a living is happy that random people get to read the book without going through a medium that involves someone paying for the book?
Anyway, I just noticed that it looks like I started this topic since Sam moved the previous conversation beginning with my post lol.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros When I made the Upload and Download Argument it was to show how @fozzedout was wrong in one of the points he made. I do not like this argument too but I hate factually incorrect arguments more, so this argument for me is better than "It is the people who read the translation who are at fault, NOT the one who distributes the Illegal translation."
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@drone205 said in What's the line between accepting money for translations and charging for translations?:
it is not illegal to download it
I don't know what copyright laws are like where you are but it is illegal to download it in the United States of America. The question is, will the copyright holder enforce it on you?
The RIAA got a little crazy and didn't verify they were sueing the correct people that downloaded songs so they got slapped back hard in court eventually. They were suing people because they had matching IP addresses when they didn't verify they were the ones that had that IP address when the download actually occurred.
Normally, copyright infringement cases are enforced by the copyright holders or people that represent them. The RIAA and MPAA are groups that represent a lot of people who make songs and movies, respectively.
When suing people/groups, it is often more cost effective to go after people you know have money so a lot of copyright infringement is ignored because it isn't cost effective to try and get blood out of a turnip. Even if you win, it still costs money to sue someone, and if you can't recoup your costs it is only beneficial from the perspective that it may scare other people way from infringing on your copyright.
That does not mean they can't sue you, they just don't think it would be worth their time. The RIAA did sue a lot of people who had no money. They also destroyed their public image over the stunts they pulled.
Just because you don't get caught doesn't change the fact that it is illegal. The internet is filled with copyright infringement that does not get enforced. People who scan images from books and posts those images on the internet are often in violation of copyright infringement.
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@drone205 Yep, I wasn't replying to you, just voicing a thought.
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@malloc said in What's the line between accepting money for translations and charging for translations?:
Just because you don't get caught doesn't change the fact that it is illegal. The internet is filled with copyright infringement that does not get enforced. People who scan images from books and posts those images on the internet are often in violation of copyright infringement.
That last point is Uploading so it does not go with the rest of your argument about Downloading. I specifically told the difference between Downloading and uploading. I get what you are saying but this last point does not add to the downloading points.
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@drone205 said in What's the line between accepting money for translations and charging for translations?:
That last point is Uploading
It is illegal to upload copyright data to a forum where others can download without permission from the copyright holder, it is illegal to host the data where people other than those with permission to download it can download the data, it is illegal to download when you don't have the copyright holders permission to download the data. The copyright holder can go after all individuals/groups responsible for any of those three actions.
If the person hosting the data removes the data as soon as they are aware of the infringement they can absolve themselves of the issue. That is how Youtube avoids getting sued for having people post the data.
The last point being just about one of those three actions does not invalidate my argument it was about copyright infringement in general and was about how a lot of people are not aware they are breaking copyright laws. The RIAA did successfully sue people that were responsible for downloading songs when they actually weren't doing stupid stuff.
Of course even though it is illegal you can chose to ignore that and put yourself at risk. If you aren't profiting off of the copyright infringement there is a very low chance you will get sued. Violate the law at your own risk.
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In Japan it was actually legal to download things that you didn't have a license to, like mp3s or anime or movies, until about 8 years ago I think.
That's when they updated the law to also include penalties for downloading.In the US both uploading and downloading have been finable copyright offenses for quite a while I believe. Prior to the DMCA it was a bit gray area, but the DMCA I'm pretty sure included language making it clear that downloading was infringement and you could be sued for it.
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@drone205 said in What's the line between accepting money for translations and charging for translations?:
@myskaros When I made the Upload and Download Argument it was to show how @fozzedout was wrong in one of the points he made. I do not like this argument too but I hate factually incorrect arguments more, so this argument for me is better than "It is the people who read the translation who are at fault, NOT the one who distributes the Illegal translation."
You are correct, my mistake, yes, the translator for copying the work to a server for others to get is also at fault. Basically, everyone is at fault, so the feeling goes that "because we're all guilty, let's make it free". And then outrage happens when the person putting in all the hard work starts asking for money.
The aim of my comment was to point out that the people reading this is that regardless of whether it's completely free to read, a time delay pay wall, or an outright pay wall, the action of them going to read it automatically puts the reader at odds with the law due to the action is classed as theft, and if they are truly upset over a pay wall of some sort, they need to re-evaluate their moral stance, because what they are doing, they do not perceive as wrong or law breaking. I wouldn't be surprised if they have the same feeling for torrent sites that are free Vs paid private trackers, as it essentially bills down to the same argument.
But the shout over this is really more down to people wanting things free, and are then denied, but because this is theft, they somehow try to take the moral high ground.
If someone does something that takes up their time doing it, that person has every right to demand compensation, regardless if they are doing something legally or illegally.
If you don't agree with it, don't pay, if you do, pay. You might find reliability of a paid translator better than those who are not. But regardless if you pay for an unlicensed fan translation or not, you are still in the wrong for getting it.
Just as you would be for torrenting a movie from either a free or paid tracker.
And again, I apologise for making sounds like the translator was completely law abiding.
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No, if someone is doing something illegally, they have -no right- to get compensation for it. Trying to say they do is freaking stupid.
You're really excluding the middle here. Let's say for argument sake that someone does read fan translations. This does not mean that they are automatically disallowed from thinking that -taking money for it- is even more wrong. There's a far difference between "I read something that isn't available here and yes, that's not entirely kosher" and "I make money off someone else's work."
Honestly, it sounds to me like you know someone who does it and are all het up trying to defend them.
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Perhaps the word "right"was incorrect. But I can't think of a more appropriate term.
The way I look at it, every action whether legal or not is a business transaction. And by that, I mean in the literal sense - effort and skills are needed to do whatever job is required.
If you want a job doing, but need some external 3rd party help for that, that 3rd party has, and as I say, "right" isn't exactly the correct term, but I think close enough, but they can demand payment for services rendered, regardless if you needed an expert lawyer or an expert safe cracker.
In this case there are fan translations, which are illegal for us to access.
Your single legal course of action is to purchase a book in the original and learn to read the language. If you can't do that then you need help from a 3rd party.
At this point, the criminal activity comparison breaks down from what I see in heist movies, as loot is shared.
This time the "loot" is then one of 3 things:
- a fan translation that the person freely gives of their time. My guess is that they are practising translations, and their gain is experience. Or they truly want to donate all of their free time and skill to this. Probably other reasons as well. Each to their own.
- a time delay wall: the person has realised that their skill and time is valuable and they can make money off this, even though it's illegal. This method has the benefit of being free advertising (of what is avails for free), gaining paying clients, and because it will all be freely accessible eventually, it has that vibe of "I'm not too evil"
- complete pay wall: this will be the hardest but to crack, as the illegality is also the most prominent: I'm making money and the author isn't. Of course, in this situation, the action of you paying a 3rd party for services rendered is also prominent.
And it's in the situation where money is passed that the injustice of it all rears its ugly head, even though the author is hurt in exactly the same same way regardless of whether payment is demanded or not - and this is where I have a problem with people shouting about this: why are you not vocal against all fan translations?!
Personally, I am indifferent to fan translators - I don't have any dealings with any of them, and they can do whatever they want in their own free time. I've checked out fan translations once and found the result... Severely wanting. Official translations are a vast magnitude better in quality.
Btw, I am offended at your insinuating comment that I have some relation to pay translators. I merely see things from a business model, and apply reasoning as such. I wish more people would look at life like business transactions, and if things are cost effective or not, but that is waaaay off topic.
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Honestly, without mentioning the specific series or sites, there are probably many J-NC members who frequent fan translation or scanlation sites. I am fully aware of the copyright infringement part. However, because of how broken the Amer. copyright system is in terms of when things should be public domain (copyright and trademark), I don't really feel guilty about reading them. Yes, I am aware that is a cop-out explanation. Numerous times on Twitter I have admitted such an act makes my rants about the deprivation of works entering Amer. public domain a moot point.
