People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza
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@jnovelaremonsters said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
In fact, if it wasn't for the treatment of the literal foundation of why ANY OF YOU CARE about Japanese novels
My memory is fuzzy, but I think the literal foundation of why I care about Japanese novels was either wanting to know more about the events only referred to in Boogiepop Phantom, wanting to see the original work of some other show rather than just another adaptation (i.e. the manga, which was mid still more likely to get picked up in English than the LN) or to know what happened after the end of an anime the ended on a cliffhanger. So if you're saying that some random guy on the internet reproducing someone else's stories without permission is my "foundation" then you are wrong.
P.S. good on you for buying stuff. Sadly, you're in the minority.
P.P.S. First fan translation of an LN I ever read was Youjo Senki, right after buying all the books, while watching the anime, just before Yen announced their license. -
@rahul-balaggan Yeah, me too - never read a fan translation of a LN.
I think the Sword Art Online Anime’s popularity is what brought me to Light Novels (not directly , I didn’t watch the show until after readin the LNs from Yen, but I think the popularity of the show, not fan translations, is what convinced Yen that now was a good time to bring the anime over).
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@jnovelaremonsters If the authors not being ok with it is a “bullshit”answer because the fan translators are doing just selfless service, then why are you so against someone making the authors aware of the work so they can decide? Shouldn’t the authors of the work have some say in how their work is sold? I truly don’t understand why you seem to have a pro- translator, anti- author bias...
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@jnovelaremonsters Good grief. I'm coming in late to this argument, but I'll say that you're off base just from your screen name. The whole debate about intellectual property has been going on for a long while, and I don't think we are going to resolve anything here, but here's my $0.02. Since we are talking about translations, I'll limit myself to that.
Translations are, IMO, a derivative work. The translator is expending resources creating something that, while not original, is unique. As such, the translator has ever right to charge as much, or as little, as they desire for that work. It's up to the market to decide whether to pay that price or not. The characters; however, are a completely different matter.
There is a long-standing legal principle that a character belongs to it's creator. Any use of that character, even in a derivative work, requires the permission, or at least the silent acquiescence, of the creator. In that regard, fan fiction and translation are the same. The creator can actively permit it, silently allow it, or actively prohibit it. It's not up to the readers to choose which course of action to take.
That being said, it's not really open for debate when a person who does have permission from the original creators to use their works decides to go after someone that does not have permission. That is their right.
I've said this before. I think J-novel Club deals with fan translations in a fair and evenhanded manner. Arguing about who did what first is a lot of wasted noise.
Soapbox mode off
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@hakomari missed the point, not trying to correct your English. Just saying that just because you dont like something doesn't mean it doesn't deserved to exist.
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@rahul-balaggan said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
@jnovelaremonsters said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
The only reason why ANY of you know of any of these series is because of the hard work of these 'pirates' have done.
Woah there, on what grounds do you have to make that super baseless accusation....
Me neither, never read a fanslation besides a video game fanslation. Don't know if I'm the outlier or the majority. I pick my titles based on Justus R Stone's weekly top ten, anime series, manga I hear is based on LNs, and game adaptations.
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@the-green-death I dont mind people going about their own legal discourse. Its the threats and attempts to scare people like the mafia that are the issue. Granted, if the author did feel like dumping on the fan translators then chances are I would no longer support them, buying their merchandise or read their content. But again, my beef is with JNC and how they treat fan translators. My account name isnt authorsaremonsters
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@readingsteiner said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
Ey Boss. Want me to break this guy's shins? Wrench 'im in the clavicle? Teach 'im a little lesson about who's in charge round 'ere?
Pick yer poison, bub. You jus' met yer maker. This is our town, scrub.
:wrench: :knife: :bomb:Baccano season 2 inbound? Getting my :popcorn: ready! xP
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Translations like those are bad for the reputation of the work. Poor fan-translations are one of the reasons to why light novels have a bad reputation in anime and manga communities.
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@jnovelaremonsters said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
@the-green-death I dont mind people going about their own legal discourse. Its the threats and attempts to scare people like the mafia that are the issue.
How is Sam asking translators to take down their translations as Jnovel reaches that part but still allowing them to TL "evil" But YP/Kadokawa/Kodansha nuking entire series with no other TL allowed not?
Your entire post is based off of you "deliberately" misinterpreting a message from him to japtem about Arifureta which has been completed for ages. A TL that was so so quality and I thought he had removed from his site for like the 10th time.
BTW as much as I profess to hate YP, I really don't. They're the reason we get so many things localized even if they're so freaking slow ( their grammar and over localisation too)
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I am gonna say this. It does not matter who is morally right. It is about who provides a better service. I would rather spend 10 dollars per month on J-novel Club (JNC) with easily readable translations and consistent releases than a free translation with obvious machine translation that has inconsistent releases. Now I am sure there are some passionate fans who do it just for the fans (I heard of a website that translates Chinese WN that is great) but there are more who do it for the money. I don't like viruses and ADS EVERWHERE I GO like you find in Kissanime (who are more like the mafia), so I can safely say I would rather stay with JNC than risk the Fan-translations that likely have shit translations. I don't mind Fan translations if they are safe and not toxic, but if there is a legal translation that supports the original creators than I will go there.
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I have only contributed to one fan translation. That fan translator obtained the permission of the original author to translate his works. I don't want to be considered an accomplice by donating to an illegal translation. Just because you aren't caught or the owner doesn't come after you doesn't mean it isn't illegal.
I don't know what jnovelaremonsters is actually trying to accomplish. He is in the wrong legally, and has nothing to stand on. As far as legal warnings go J-Novel's was incredibly nice. It is probably the nicest notice about legal matters I have ever seen.
Relating them to Yakuza is simply flame bait to get a reaction. J-Novel complies with the law, unlike the Yakuza. Is there any way we can put a specific user on ignore? Even his account name is designed to bait people and with an inflammatory name like that I can't see any reason to read any of his posts in the future.
Arguing for the sake of arguing is pointless and almost never accomplishes anything.
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@drone205 said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
It does not matter who is morally right.
It matters to me? I mean, back when I still downloaded shows where the simulcast wasn't available in the UK, I deliberately downloaded the rips of the low res official YouTube/NicoNico etc. streams so I wasn't getting something "better" than those watching it legally.
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@paul-nebeling Just to catch you up, based on US copyright laws, derivative works are considered unique works and do not breach the original work's copyright. However, in Japan, the copyright holder holds all rights to derivative works such as translations.
Also, just to remind everyone reading and especially @Jnovelaremonsters, this is the "threat" that's being discussed:
- Japtem receives a request to remove translations
- Translator asks back why the WN is affected when only the LN was licensed
- The response is "we're just asking, but here's where you and I stand legally"
- Japtem decides to remove translations
In other words, there is zero threat. The translator literally asked how he is affected legally, and received a response detailing how he legally could be affected.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
Just to catch you up, based on US copyright laws, derivative works are considered unique works and do not breach the original work's copyright.
Really? From what I understood of US copyright law, derivative works do fall under the original's copyright.
Googling gives me this pdf, which says
Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, an adaptation of that work. [...] The unauthorized adaption of a work may constitute copyright infringement.
The only leeway there is "may constitute copyright infringement," which I assumed was referring to fair use policy; I'm fairly certain fair use wouldn't apply to fan translations distributed widely on the internet (and absolutely certain it doesn't for fan translators with patreon or whatever), but that's a part of the law that relies on interpretation, so it's not as easy to conclusively point to some quote.
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@hatguy12 Whoops, I believe I may have misunderstood what I had read before, I think you are right. In other words, there's even less leeway to construe fan translations as legitimate works.
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@myskaros Since we are discussing international application of copyright laws, and I have no knowledge of Japan's laws, other than they are different from ours, so I guess you're right. That's why lawyers get paid big bucks. As far as U.S. copyright law goes, I'm not sure there are not many instances of a U.S. copyrighted book needing a third party translation.
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To pick a popular young adult novel at random... The Hunger Games was released in Japan by Media Factory and translated by Naoko Kawai from Osaka. Inside it reads "Japanese translation rights arranged with Intercontinental Literary Agency through Japan UNI Agency". That's all sounds pretty third party.
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@jnovelaremonsters said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
snip The only reason why ANY of you know of any of these series is because of the hard work of these 'pirates' have done. There would be an entire market in the west that wouldn't have known, or paid money for their content. The whole reason that the authors are getting money from the west is purely through the efforts of the fan translations. But to you, I guess the fan translators should feel thankful that they didnt have their legs broken. -_-
Yeah, no. The only series JNC are publishing that I knew of before becoming a member are the ones with an anime (Grimgar & Smartphone), likewise for non-JNC series I'm buying too (Re:Zero, Konosuba). So WN & LN fan translators didn't do shit as far as making me a potential customer - it was the marketing strategy of making an anime as an advert for the novels. I almost always see, or at least hear of, the anime first then go looking for the source material. I have way too much to read as it is, but if I wanted more I'd go for fanfiction of series I already like rather than shitty machine translated series I'd never heard of.
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@hatguy12 @myskaros @paul-nebeling
Based on this thread I believe the way that it works is that the original author has the right to control the creation and distribution of translations, which are derivative works. The fan translator has ownership of the particular script of his own translation, but did not have the right to create it and does not possess the right to make use of it by e.g. distributing it on his website if he was not authorized to create that translation, as this infringes on the original author's rights over creation and distribution of derivative works - the translation is still copyright infringement. Thus legal actions with regards to the unauthorized use of this fan translation (whether by the fan translator or by others) can only be taken by or with the authorization of the original rights holder.
