How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry
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@WaterDweller said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
For my part, I can only say that about half of the light novels I'm currently buying were ones I discovered via fan translated manga. But looking at it closer, that's mostly the early half: the novels I discovered 1-2 years ago. Lately, I've for the most part been discovering new novels by looking at publication schedules to see if there's anything that catches my eye.
I usually visit https://global.bookwalker.jp/ to see what's new. I was lucky to discover Busy Wizard via a forum recommendation, it turned out to be unexpectedly amusing read.
I've been keeping an eye on seven seas and j-novel new licenses, but so far, nothing has stood out.@WaterDweller said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
I just thought I'd comment on this one specifically, as I can see multiple reasons why it might not make business sense to licence Death Mage (yet).
To start with, the official Japanese release schedule for the light novel volumes is very slow (less than two volumes a year), and each volume covers only about half of a single web novel volume, of which there are currently 14 completed, with a 15th (and probably more) on the way.
That's a minimum of 30 light novel volumes before it reaches its conclusion, which at the current rate of publication, would take over a decade just for the Japanese edition to catch up to where the web novel is now, and on the order of 6-7 years to reach the current point of the fan translation. That's a long time for a company to commit its resources when it isn't even certain that the Japanese edition will survive that long.
Now that you mention it, Hifumi Shobo seems like a small upstart company. Surprisingly enough they have 2 novels I am familiar with, Death Mage & Garbage Hero, both of which are quite entertaining. They even branch out into adult literature with I Became a Hero in a Pandemic.
Sadly Garbage Hero light novel has been picked up for translation by some random fan translator.@WaterDweller said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
It's also worth mentioning that if the novel gets licensed, there's a good chance Yoshi will have to give up his fan translation gig, which would mean no more new well-translated Death Mage for western fans for the next 6+ years. A lot of people would probably start praying for google translate to improve miraculously at that point.
Some people are reading MTL of latest chapters already, its doable if you combine the efforts of multiple translation tools and get used to the quircks.
Now then, the hard topic.... As far as I can tell, Yoshi works as translator for Japanese government, he should probably not be doing any fan translation to begin with. As much as I have respect for his skills as translator, I have my doubts about his character as human being. The donation he takes for single chapter is the very definition of insanity. Recently he even upped it by 50$ while removing any mention of donations on earlier chapters that where around 100$. Maybe I am talking out of my ass, but 150-200$ for a chapter of around 6500 to 7500 words is lunacy. Or maybe I am the one who is crazy because people are actually donating.
@WaterDweller said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Of course, there's still a chance the publication schedule might speed up once Densuke completes his web novel, and can put all his focus into editing and preparing the light novels for publication. But any licencor should probably be waiting for that to happen before they make the dive.
It seems that the web novel has entered its final arc, I suspect at the rate Densuke is going (1 chapter a week) we might see Death Mage web novel end this year. Which may result in faster light novel publication. Which is why I think now is the best time to make a move onto death mage. After all, early birds get the worm.
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@Zing said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Now then, the hard topic.... As far as I can tell, Yoshi works as translator for Japanese government, he should probably not be doing any fan translation to begin with. As much as I have respect for his skills as translator, I have my doubts about his character as human being. The donation he takes for single chapter is the very definition of insanity. Recently he even upped it by 50$ while removing any mention of donations on earlier chapters that where around 100$. Maybe I am talking out of my ass, but 150-200$ for a chapter of around 6500 to 7500 words is lunacy. Or maybe I am the one who is crazy because people are actually donating.
That is indeed crazy. In fact it's completely bonkers. It's been over a year since I last followed the translations (I initially intended to wait for chapters to accumulate before reading them, but after a few months it sort of slipped my mind, and now I can't really be bothered to go back. Maybe when it's finally finished both in Japanese and in translation...), and I remember being kind of surprised even back then at how much the donations were for each chapter.
IIRC, the excuse he used was that he simply didn't have time to translate the chapters as quickly as the donations for them were rolling in, so he increased the price in the hopes of reducing the backlog of chapters he had to translate. Which is pretty specious as far as excuses go, given that it should be easy enough to set a limit on donations to fit his translation schedule, instead of pushing up the price and squeezing as much money as possible out of hungry fans.
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The whole issue of how much fan translations help or hurt is a bit of a complicated one. There are series that we would never get in English without fan translations, but the existence of a fan translation also inevitably makes it harder for anyone to make money off of an official translation, making it that much less likely that a series will be licensed. Ideally, everything would just be officially translated, and fan translations wouldn't have any reason to exist anymore, but unfortunately, that's likely a pipe dream. Still, the number of series that get licensed these days is amazing in comparison to the way that things used to be.
In any case, what I find particularly interesting about the whole situation is how a number of people seem to think that there's something special about stuff that comes from Japan - be it manga, light novels, or anime - with regards to how it should be available. It's not uncommon to see posts online where someone is looking for a site or an app where they can read light novels, and they're assuming that the whole thing is going to be free. There seems to be a whole group of people out there who think that just because something was in Japanese originally, they should be able to get a fan translation in English without paying anything to anyone (be it to the author, to English translators, or whoever). The mind set is so completely foreign to me that it blows my mind. I can understand reading a fan translation, because a series never got licensed in English, but how does that translate to the idea that all of that stuff is supposed to be available for free? It seems like somehow the existence of fan translations has led a number of people to think that that's how things are supposed to work instead of it being a solution that some hardcore fans went with, because they had no other option at the time.
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@Zing said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Maybe I am talking out of my ass, but 150-200$ for a chapter of around 6500 to 7500 words is lunacy.
Well, Sam or one of the JNC translators would certainly be able to give a much better idea of what the normal going rate for translation is, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that were actually lower than what translators typically get paid for that amount of work. Of course, donations are a very different ballgame from someone who's paid by a company, but from the perspective of the translator, it shouldn't be surprising if they wanted to make as much translating in their free time as they did for their job. Of course, they're basically asking to be paid for work that's actually illegal, and when most of the people involved are used to getting that work for free, it's likely to look that much worse the more money they ask for, but I don't find it at all surprising that someone doing fan translations would try to make that kind of money off of it if they can.
Of course, I would also think that charging for translating work that you don't have the right to translate would be more likely to get you into legal trouble, but that's clearly not stopping this particular translator. I guess that it is resulting in some people getting what they want translated translated though.
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My $.02:
Reading a web novel that an author posted, with the intention of it being free to read, on the original site, but using google translate or a similar tool is ethical. Any monetizing of that content by anyone but the author or who he/she authorized isn’t.“But I wanna read it, and MTL is bad, and if I go to this other place on the web I can read a better translation for free, yes there are some annoying ads, and they ask for donations but....” Is justification of something illegal, pretty weak justification of doing something wrong. It potentially hurts the author and the industry. If an author actually wants the “exposure” they can put a link to fan translation on the site where they post the web novel. Somehow I don’t think that ever happens .
It’s 2020, there’s a ton of material available that’s legit, more published than I’m capable of reading. There isn’t a valid argument for lack of supply justification for piracy. Support legit outlets and more will come. Heck there’s a whole thread about a new publisher on this very forum.
I read banned books
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@Kalessin said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Well, Sam or one of the JNC translators would certainly be able to give a much better idea of what the normal going rate for translation is, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that were actually lower than what translators typically get paid for that amount of work.
You know, I did a quick google search for going rates for paid translation work, and found all kinds of figures, but apparently, in 2016, the absolute cheapest of all the bids for translation work for the U.S. government was $0.08 per word for the English-Spanish language pair (source). That's still over twice as much as the $200 for 6,500 words (making for a meagre $0.03 per word) this fan translator does. Colour me surprised. If they'd charged what that source considers the "magic number", a 6,500 word chapter would've cost $1,365. Granted, that number is based on non-literary translation, where there are generally higher standards for accuracy, but still.
Moral and legal issues aside, I guess that's enough to change my mind about that fan translator overcharging.
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@WaterDweller said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Moral and legal issues aside, I guess that's enough to change my mind about that fan translator overcharging.
Does that person pay taxes on that income? Did they pay licensing or sublicensing fees, or distribution fees? Do they even have permission from the copyright holder?
Do you get paid for reading a book in your free time, or playing a video game, or strumming on your guitar? No? Then why is it acceptable for this guy to get paid anything for translating during his free time, then illegally distributing?
To me, the only time fan translation is a gray area is when they literally accept no money and purely do it for the love of the work and hope that it'll get picked up in the future. It should probably be taken down if it does get licensed, but the Internet being what it is and nothing ever getting lost, I can deal with them not taking it down. But to take any amount of money, especially when the author is already putting it up for free (in the case of WNs), is just low.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros
I would agree that taking money to translate a web novel is definitely crossing the line. -
@myskaros said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Do you get paid for reading a book in your free time, or playing a video game, or strumming on your guitar?
If I’m being perfectly honest, you just described my dream job. ;P
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@Kalessin said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
@Zing said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Maybe I am talking out of my ass, but 150-200$ for a chapter of around 6500 to 7500 words is lunacy.
Well, Sam or one of the JNC translators would certainly be able to give a much better idea of what the normal going rate for translation is, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that were actually lower than what translators typically get paid for that amount of work.
Take my word with a grain of salt, because I'm still a newbie to professional translation.
Most of what I've done so far has had the rate per original Japanese character, not end English word count. Let's say we have a WN chapter that's 3500 characters long, and it's done at a rate of $0.03/character (which I have heard of before as a professional rate). That'd come out to $105 for the chapter.
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I don't think any fan translator should be charging money for translating someone else's work publicly. Like if someone does a private commission for completely personal, private use? That's fine. Translating someone else's things, posting them publicly, and having a Ko-fi for website costs? We're in the gray, but it's kind of okay, I guess? Covering said website with banner ads? Ehhhh. Having a Patreon where you lock someone else's content under tiers going up to like $60/month? Absolutely not. -
@gmkz said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
I don't think any fan translator should be charging money for translating someone else's work publicly. Like if someone does a private commission for completely personal, private use? That's fine. Translating someone else's things, posting them publicly, and having a Ko-fi for website costs? We're in the gray, but it's kind of okay, I guess? Covering said website with banner ads? Ehhhh. Having a Patreon where you lock someone else's content under tiers going up to like $60/month? Absolutely not.
From a legal standpoint, translating a copyrighted work and distributing it to anyone else without the permission of the copyright holder is clearly illegal whether money is involved or not. Given that there is no legal way to get some of this stuff in English, it can certainly be debated how moral it is or isn't to provide translations for it, and of course, it can be debated how moral it is or isn't to get donations or charge for the effort to create such translations, but there's no question that it's illegal, and at best such translations are in a moral grey area.
Personally, I was just trying to point out that from the standpoint of someone getting paid to translate something, the amount that that translator was asking for wasn't necessarily unreasonable. Either way, it has no bearing on how legal it is. Regardless of whether their rates are reasonable for the amount that they're translating, they're profiting off of translating material that they have no right to.
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@Kalessin Sorry, I should have specified that my second paragraph was more for the topic as a whole than directly at you.
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@Jon-Mitchell said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
If an author actually wants the “exposure” they can put a link to fan translation on the site where they post the web novel. Somehow I don’t think that ever happens
It actually does (I dunno about novels, but for manga anyway). I've seen a number of Twitter mangas lately (where the author posts 4 pages per day or per week or something on their Twitter) where an English translator got permission from the author to translate it, and the authors usually link back to the English version in a reply to the Japanese one once it comes out.
I do think it was a way cool concept for a scanlator to actually ask permission first, and I've seen a surprising number of them actually doing that now, and authors agreeing to it.
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@pcj
Then that’s a case of the author giving permission, and seems to be the exception. Because it’s exceptional, that supports the other points raised. Almost always fan translations are done without the author’s consent -
Genius Prince So this Ln has been licensed with 2 light novel been release officially yet for some reason someone is still doing a fan translating it and uploading the chapter to novel update - any idea how to get them to stop ( they start posting before the first volume was released but Volume 2 was released officially while they where still in the middle of that volume they are currently ahead but that not really the point ) not sure if it will hurt the english ln sales
Just below is a copy and paste from there website
i mean novel update even has it tagged as a Licensed light novel.
The person who is translating is even has a patreon/ asking for people to donate to them
Some Stats About the light novel
Release Frequency
Every 1.6 Day(s)
Activity Stats [Graph]
Weekly Rank: #796
Monthly Rank: #303
All Time Rank: #1084
Reading List [Graph]
On 3931 Reading Lists
Monthly Rank: #134
All Time Rank: #870Also does J novel club check site like novel update to get fan translates to stop
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Your best best is to forward that information to the company who holds the distribution license and let them handle it.
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@WaterDweller said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
It's also worth mentioning that if the novel gets licenced, there's a good chance Yoshi will have to give up his fan translation gig, which would mean no more new well-translated Death March for western fans for the next 6+ years. A lot of people would probably start praying for google translate to improve miraculously at that point.
It might be worth highlighting that the spells out one of the reasons a company might want to avoid licensing a series, even a popular one, with a well-advanced fan translation. Yes, the fan translation may have revealed a potential audience for the series, but how many of them are going to turn up to buy, say, volume 1 of the official release when it comes out? Some probably will, but it certainly won't be all of them. So, to take the above from the opposite perspective, a company licensing this series could have a six-year run where the potential audience is not, in fact, that interested in the product.
Now, something could always happen to shift that balance – maybe the series gets a popular anime, for example, that helps create a wider fan base – but purely as a light novel proposition, a strong, long-standing fan translation could militate against acquiring a series.
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@Jon-Mitchell said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
“But I wanna read it, and MTL is bad, and if I go to this other place on the web I can read a better translation for free, yes there are some annoying ads, and they ask for donations but....” Is justification of something illegal, pretty weak justification of doing something wrong. It potentially hurts the author and the industry.
Is it? (Weak justification, and is it wrong?) Do you feel the same way about people translating Tweets or press releases? Blog posts? If not, why not -- and if the author used a blogging platform to post instead of a dedicated site like ncode.syosetu.com, is it okay now?
And if so... it's trying to drive down interest actually a huge negative for the (translated novels) industry, pushing fans toward content originally written in languages they comprehend? Of course, if you don't see that as a negative, I can't really contest the point; it may be harmful for the translated novel industry, but it probably isn't for ebook industry as a whole.
Like, should I apologize for being excited about J-Novel licensing Wild Last Boss and Duke's Daughter...? How is this harmful?
If an author actually wants the “exposure” they can put a link to fan translation on the site where they post the web novel. Somehow I don’t think that ever happens .
Why does it surprise you that this happens, given how often Japanese authors keep Web Novels online even after they publish a Light Novel?
That part is quite different to the English-language scene in my admittedly limited experience; Amazon, at least, wants authors they publish to only keep a certain amount of content online. One of my favorite authors takes down all but a few chapters whenever he switches from Royal Road to published, though he still use it for the next draft. I know another who keeps one of his novels on Royal Road and keeps updating it but writes the rest directly.
It’s 2020, there’s a ton of material available that’s legit, more published than I’m capable of reading. There isn’t a valid argument for lack of supply justification for piracy. Support legit outlets and more will come. Heck there’s a whole thread about a new publisher on this very forum.
Amazon still recommends light novels to me, which is great. :) But they've been pushing their own content and Kindle Unlimited a lot lately... which would definitely fall under 'more content than I could ever read.' I feel like that's more of a long-term risk for the industry than "what if fans", but it also could just be a reflection of my own personal purchase habits.
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@Ran said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Like, should I apologize for being excited about J-Novel licensing Wild Last Boss and Duke's Daughter...? How is this harmful?
I think you're conflating two different things. Being excited about new licenses is fine. Bankrolling people who steal content and shamelessly ask for money or donations is not.
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@Ran said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Do you feel the same way about people translating Tweets or press releases? Blog posts? If not, why not -- and if the author used a blogging platform to post instead of a dedicated site like ncode.syosetu.com, is it okay now?
tweets, press releases and the like are not typically content that has to potential to be sold, and the platform (Twitter for example) is designed to allow for re-tweets (who owns my tweets? -I'm pretty sure that once I post them...twitter does)
I intentionally posted 2 extremes - If I use a google setting to view content originally publicly posted in Japanese (MTL) I'm not altering the material, I'm not reselling the material. I could argue that I'm doing what the content creator intended- I'm reading what he/she wrote- where they intended it to be read. The other extreme, monetizing the content is stealing. Even worse are those that post translations of works that are under a license (LNs, scanilations of manga in print etc) I'm not a expert in international law, but in the USA, derivative works are covered by the copyright of the original. Posting a translation is a violation of the copyright in this context (A translation is a derivative work)
Are there 'shades of grey' between the two extremes I spoke of? Sure I can think of several, but a tweet is a straw man argument
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I read banned books
