How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry
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@Jon-Mitchell oh dear... Crunchyroll free has the current titles available after 1-2 months later (example, I'm watching Railgun T, so for today's episode I'd have to wait at6 least to the end of the month...)
I wanted to have a witty signature once I saw some of the ones some guys on the Bookworm forums had but None of the ones I thought felt witty enough...
The solution: Fuck it, I'll go Commando! -
@Zing said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
If fan translation is such a problem why not directly sign a deal with up and coming Japanese author on syosetu? Just like the regular Japanese publisher do.
Then you can outsource the print edition to a Japanese company and have a simultaneous book release in the west and the east.Precisely this.
Fan translators (generally) work for free or are working off patreon donations. They devote their free time to bring entertainment to a community that other companies won't take a risk on to provide. If it weren't for subs, there would be no anime market right now. If it weren't for fan translations of WN/LN/Manga then western interest would be pretty much nil. It has to start for free somewhere.We all recognize that providing supplication to the original author/publisher is important, but in general copyright holders have all the cards. They tear down the communities that are built up and "seed" foreign interest in a given work but also happily reap the "benefits" of the community by exploiting the homespun interest in their work.
If copyright holders were more forthcoming and honest, if they simply approached the fangroup and hired those hobbyists on, and if they gave the community incentive to contribute $$ instead of expecting free stuff, you would have a winning formula.
It comes down to whether you actually believe capitalism can create "positive sum games" where two parties can both benefit from cooperation. But largely in Japan or I guess in the publishing/entertainment world in general, people have a zero-sum game point of view, where "pirates" must be destroyed.
I can safely say I would not be spending money at j-novel.club today if there hadn't been numerous free access to manga, LN/WN in English. I think the "Steam" analogy also makes a lot of sense. What I like about j-novel.club is I can support the author and the translator and I can also have weekly/monthly updates on stuff, as opposed to waiting months and months and months for a singular release (which honestly diminishes my myopic interest).
Obviously, groups that want to just "give away work for free" might seem like a profit-loss for publishers and copyright-holders, but really you should view these groups as having minimal penetration into the market. If you are marketing your platform correctly, most traffic will flow to you. If your site has enough convenience for purchase and comes with the necessary features to keep people coming back, the free communities will serve only a minority of people anyway.
I am obviously ignorant of JP publishing culture, but I have always been baffled by they don't have EN translators already preparing an EN release of a book after it's been finished by the JP author. Do these JP-centric publishing houses only care about the JP market because they believe so little in their talent's work? Or are there way more financial hurdles in pushing translated works abroad still....
A perfect example for me right now is Re:Zero. That stuff is obviously popular in the West, yet its translation is at a snail's pace. If you're watching the anime right now and want to read, you're actually quite limited how much of it you can even buy in English, which makes no sense given the plethora of side story content available and how many years it's been out! This is the time it should be for sale - when the anime is airing; not years later when interest is at its low point. Obviously, I'm sure publishers are seeing, 'well there 50 books for this work, if we release all 50 in a month period, won't we be shooting ourselves in the foot...?' but even so, there were years wasted that could have built up to this point. The strategy was nonexistent. It only gives incentive to fan groups to diligently go along and translate page by page, because they know waiting for any official release is pointless.
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@alfonso_rd_36 said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
@Jon-Mitchell oh dear... Crunchyroll free has the current titles available after 1-2 months later (example, I'm watching Railgun T, so for today's episode I'd have to wait at6 least to the end of the month...)
Ooh, that's terrible. In the USA content is only 1 week behind "new" for free version (so you only need to wait for the most recent episode until the following week) Funimation is mostly the same
I read banned books
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@setite-0 said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
I am obviously ignorant of JP publishing culture, but I have always been baffled by they don't have EN translators already preparing an EN release of a book after it's been finished by the JP author. Do these JP-centric publishing houses only care about the JP market because they believe so little in their talent's work? Or are there way more financial hurdles in pushing translated works abroad still..
A very few titles do exactly this (DANMACHI or maybe SAO for example in print, Dr. Stone and The Tower of God as anime) but overall it's entirely not practical- it's an expense without a known return on investment
I think that as fans we need to keep in mind that the Japanese publishing industry is largely centered on the domestic market. Very few works have widespread popularity (even in Japan), very few get anime renditions, not every anime is popular in Japan or one's popular in Japan become popular overseas...and which titles become popular (in Japan or overseas) is not always a known quantity while the light novels are being published in Japan. If a series does become very popular (like Re:Zero) that makes it more valuable, publishers can demand more $$ for licensing the work.
Fan translating a popular title like Re:Zero wouldn't be about promoting an obscure/unknown work. Or promoting Japanese light novels in general, it would be about making money at the expense of the creators of the work: Piracy
Why hasn't Yen Press or Seven Seas or JNC or whoever translated Re:Zero yet? I don't know. Maybe it's too expensive to get the rights to do so, Maybe it's in the works and not yet released, maybe to publisher just more focused on the domestic market and not the West. Maybe they don't want to risk taking it on if the pirated copies are readily available for free/nearly free
what disreputable fan translation sites do is cherry pick, go and pick titles that have already proven to be in demand and translate those (or steal/re-post translations done by someone else) regardless of license. and figure out a way to monetize the process
what reputable fan translation sites do is raise awareness about light novels in general, promote titles that otherwise would be overlooked or that they have determined are unlikely to get official/licensed translations in the near future ---walking an ethical tightrope. They might have dedicated hard working folks that do the work without reward...only to see their work taken down at the request of the original author or copyright holder, or they might get praise, thanks, and recognition from those same authors for promoting the titles.
I (personally) don't think it's about a zero sum game. I think it's about a complex exercise in figuring out what the market will bear, and investing limited resources to get those products to market that will be in demand.
Piracy is about exploiting that demand that was created by someone else's work and monetizing it, regardless of if that harms the creators of the content or the market as a whole.
I'm not pointing fingers at @setite-0 with the following statement- but I don't want to create a separate post,
I'm weary of some folks who hold the belief that 'I want what I want and it isn't fair that it costs $x.xx, (or isn't yet available right now) so I'm justified in getting it via napster or a torrent, or whatever because or reasons' , especially in those cases where legitimate avenues are available. It's the morality that toddlers have, and should grow out of.
I read banned books
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@Jon-Mitchell said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
napster
You're dating yourself xD
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
@Jon-Mitchell said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
napster
You're dating yourself xD
yea, I'm old.
The ethical 'justification' for napster is the same that is used by those the frequent piracy sites. Napster and piracy of music radically changed the industry. In some ways for the better, in many ways for the worse. Yes, I can get whatever track I want on iTunes for $0.99 but I can't go to a concert (before COVID) for less than the cost of a week's wages anymore. Live music (in the past) was a way to promote album sales---now it's the primary source of income for many bands Apple/YouTube/Pandora etc do not pay the artists very much -
@Jon-Mitchell said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Why hasn't Yen Press or Seven Seas or JNC or whoever translated Re:Zero yet? I don't know.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but just to be clear, Yen Press is publishing Re:Zero in English. 13 volumes are available right now. I do know the Japanese release is ahead of that, and that the pace of the release bothers some people. I'd like to add, though, that vis-à-vis an earlier comment about "a plethora of side story content," three of the Re:Zero EX volumes are currently available in English, with the fourth one coming out this month. (There are some short story collections that haven't been published in English. I can't speak to that.)
I do want to point out that one reason it takes time to release things in English is that translation requires effort! Re:Zero, for example, is an exceptionally dense series of novels. It takes time to translate and produce them. I'm not saying there's no possible discussion to have about if and how the publishing processes of the print industry could be streamlined, but please realize that calling for huge amounts of content ("all 50 volumes") to be released in short order is to imply a lack of interest in the well-being of the translators, editors, proof-readers, and other people involved in the production process.
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@Kevin-S I could amend my post to read "why haven't all 50 volumes of " etc
I both appreciate your points about the complexities and value that a professional translation/editorial staff bring to the table (and I personally feel that JNC does a wonderful job and I appreciate your work...and buy it)
I haven't been reading Re:Zero so I was unaware of how much was in print...I apologize if I implied any lack of recognition for the hard/high quality work that professionals do.
It is ethically questionable to read fan translations of series currently licensed and being translated, if one does so, they are by definition supporting piracy and harming not only the copyright holders but those individuals who's livelihood is producing professional translations. If you want professional translations to continue you can't feed the pirates. To those that feel they are being translated too slowly, bring your concerns to Yen Press or whoever is publishing in English
I read banned books
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@Jon-Mitchell
I'm sorry if my post sounded a bit aggressive. Other than the specific remarks about the publication of Re:Zero, it wasn't aimed at you. I was looking more at some of the earlier posts, especially the one from @setite-0, and responding to that. I do appreciate your kind words and your support of this site and the industry. Hope you'll keep enjoying (and legitimately obtaining! XD) the work we do here. -
@Jon-Mitchell Also, the fall of Kissanime made me miss a lot of stuff, as I don't like the way my other Provider (AnimeFLV with subs in Spanish) handles its video, especially on the smart TV
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As far as me goes, I don't really think it hurts the industry, for the most part. I'll separate in two points
- I think they help the industry, and also, normally, when a Light Novel gets licenced, fan translators usually step down, from my point of view, they start translating because they like a certain LN, WN, VN etc. and they want more people to learn about the series, while at the same time, they practice to improve themselves (like the fan translator for DxD), I don't think that's a bad thing, if they are honest when they do it. So in that aspect I think they help the industry, and I have to say, some fan translation groups have a great level (which makes the people get interested in the series) , while at the same time they don't really ask for donations to continue translating.
- The ones who trully ruin the industry are two kind of people: The ones who MTL, and the ones who put 0 effort in the translation, and are just in to see if they can get any money. First of all, they don't even know japanese, and use google, or any other program to translate, secondly, they ask for money, lastly, they make people lose interest in what may be a great series if translated correctly, to mention some.
Even if I read the fan translations, like You-jitsu for example, I do buy the official translation.
Okay, so I apologize for how badly writen it is, I wrote this kinda in a hurry, I can explain more if someone asks.
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I think I'll be beating a dead horse with this but I'll toss my thoughts in the ring.
Interest in currently airing series was, as far as I can recall, built up by fan translators. Once it was known a market existed, we saw the birth of Crunchyroll. Even before that, there was a level of fan translators bringing light to a series that either was in the works to be localized or potentially drew enough attention to be localized. (No known evidence of the latter, as far as I'm aware.)
However, now that we have a service like Crunchyroll, there are still your average pirates that will use their subtitles in a similar fashion to the "fansub" community. This used to be looked down upon and then became the norm.
That said, pirates are going to pirate. That's actually how I found JNC and when I looked at it, I ultimately went "that's actually really cool, I'm going to support this".
So you have a double edged sword.And that's just anime, because if you start thinking about manga and LNs, they end up being two different beasts. Manga is arguably more niche than anime and LNs are really still gaining traction here in the west. Fan translations will bring these series to people's attention. Most of the time when an officially licensed translation is announced, fan translators back off. In this case, I'd say it is more beneficial than not, as the attention was grown for free for something that otherwise would've been less likely to grab them.
I would go so far as to argue piracy is closer to neutral than detrimental, being that anyone who enjoys something that they wouldn't have paid for still may pay for it but anyone who doesn't still won't... But at the same time it's a lot more nuanced than that and I'm not about to break my brain on it.
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@Kiritsuna said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
Even if I read the fan translations, like You-jitsu for example, I do buy the official translation.
A lot of people are not like you. There are people on Twitter trolling VIZ's new volume tweets and telling people to just go read it for free on aggregator sites instead of buying it. There are people who say because they don't have enough money, that means they should be allowed to just go pirate stuff for free.
Anime and manga aside, English LNs are not profitable enough to just shrug when a huge number of readers don't buy the books. It's really easy to lump anime, manga, and LNs into the same bucket since they're in the same "otakusphere," but Western anime and manga sales are much higher than LN sales, so if the same number of people who pirate manga and anime are also pirating LNs, that's a huge blow to profitability. People like to complain about how some series are so far behind, or don't get licensed for years, or the translation/editing is bad, but if there isn't enough money flowing into the industry, then it's hard to pay for all the work that needs to be done to get something translated and published professionally.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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There's also an increasing trend of starting a fan TL after something is officially licensed. For example a recent case is I'll Never Set Foot in That House Again! which JNC recently licensed. After it was announced a fan TL of the WN started soon after (and they're already way behind JNC's translated content anyway).
I've already stated my opinion on this kind of behavior though, so I won't mention again how stupid it is.
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@myskaros Well, yeah, I understand that, since most are students they can't afford to buy many translated LN's since (understandably) they are not as cheap as buying them raw. And while I don't agree with people who do pirate all their LN's, I don't necessarily mind if they pirate it at first, and when they get the money, they buy it.
Yeah, manga and anime are differnt, that's why I mostly talked about LN's and VN's. With VN's in particular I get mad (not that I don't with LN's), translating them and making everything work isn't easy, and after all the effort publishers go to release the game, they just pirate it, and then complain of why they didn't translate the sequel.
I mentioned in my previous comment WN's, but when it comes to the ones without either a LN, nor manga. Do the fan translators ruin it? I mean, it's not like they already got officially published
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@Kiritsuna said in How much do you think fan translations hurt the industry:
I mentioned in my previous comment WN's, but when it comes to the ones without either a LN, nor manga. Do the fan translators ruin it? I mean, it's not like they already got officially published
No, translating unpublished WNs won't affect the localization industry much because a commercial version doesn't exist anyway. It's still pretty scummy to take money for translating it, since it's copyrighted, but it isn't really a detriment to the localization industry.
The problem is related to what Terabyte said: people tend to translate WNs of popular works that do have official LNs, or manga, or anime, because, unfortunately, a huge batch of fan translators out there feel that they deserve to be paid for their unauthorized translations, and it's easy to gain visibility when people are familiar with a title or work from another medium.
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to summarize:
YEARS AGO some (most?) fan translations were done by selfless enthusiasts, to evangelize okatu culture and content- their goal? help make LN/Anime/Manga more popular more mainstream and therefore more available to the general public
(I'd argue that they have succeeded, legitimate markets in multiple languages are now viable. Anime is simulcast in many large markets (sub and/or dub) Manga are often released at the same pace in English and Japanese, LNs are still a developing market, and JNC is a leader in this sphere)NOW: the signal of the selfless enthusiasts is washed out by the noise of leeches and crooks, whose activities are driven by greed or profit.
Where are the selfless enthusiasts now? They are still out there. There are a few 'responsible' fan translation sites, still translators that restrict their efforts to works in the public domain, or in creative commons (like fan fiction), or get permission from the author to translate their WN, or cease/delete when asked by copyright holder---these folks are few and far between.
How is a consumer to know? They are likely the actions of pirates/parasites/crooks if:
- translation of something popular in another form (i.e. WN of a popular Anime)
- they want payment for works they have not licensed (Patreon or otherwise)
- site has a bunch of banner ads and/or malware
don't support pirates
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@Terabyte If the fan translators just start fan translating AFTER we start releasing something, 9 times out of 10 they will just give up because they won't be able to beat us in speed and/or quality. If profit is their motive, it's frankly, easier to just rip our official translation off our site and repost it. But if their motive is to do a "better job" they'll quickly realize they can't, or that to do so will require such a large time commitment that it's not worth it to them.
So I'm not particular concerned about this as a new "trend".
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Me, i got into all of this through fan translation. But i'm rather nitpicky on quality. So i still prefer official release. But also, it is fact that fan translation is often good quality and way, waaaaaaaay ahead of the official ones. Take Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei as an example. My favorite light novel by far. You have a pretty decent English fan translation up to volume 19. Close to what? 30 volumes out in Japan so far? The Yen press release of the translation? Maybe, MAYBE 2 volumes a year. 3 if you are extremely lucky. Volume 16 out next year. So they won't catch up to said fan translation in maybe another 2 years. And the first volume was released like 4 years ago. So it will have taken them 6 years, 6 YEARS to catch up to the fan translation. And that is after the fan translation pretty much stopped completely. Take the chinese webnovels. Wuxia and Xianxia that i am a fan of. They translate thousands of words in a day. 1,2 sometimes 3 chapters a day. Every day. Wuxiaworld.com ftw! Now i don't know anything about the difficuly of translating Japanese and Chinese, but i don't quite understand why it often takes Japanse LNs 1-2 years to release more then 3 or 4 translated volumes. Even if there are like 20+ volumes released in Japan. Maybe licensing issues? Though this site are pretty good on the speed part, wich i like. Quality and speed.
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@Jon-Mitchell exactly, I started reading bookworm as a fan translation because I loved the anime so much, that In turn made me buy every single book out at this moment and already converted 2 friends into reading the series. And now I’m a member of J-Novel, none of which would’ve happened if I hadn’t tried the fan sub.
