People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza
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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.
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I don't even understand how this is an argument, JNC is doing everything legal and the fan translations aren't and we don't even know if they support the authors. If they were doing something legal there wouldn't be an argument to begin with because they wouldn't be scared to take it to court. The point is legal beats illegal.
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waves hand I read fan translations. I also read official translations based on anime and/or manga that's been brought west. I also support and buy actual translations when they get licensed. Not to mention works I buy in the original Japanese in spite of not speaking it in order to support the author (Done that for DXD and Date a Live for instance).
Example: Was reading No Game No Life before it was licensed. When it was licensed, hey, I started buying it from Yen Press because /now that it's legally available/, I am going to put my money where my mouth is. ;) Granted, that's a sad example as the first volume of NGNL is ... not the best, but it got better. :)
It's true that fan translations bring word of mouth to many fans. But that service would not give them the right to ignore copyright law. If the author asked them to drop it, they should. If it's a LN and gets licensed, they have to drop it or they're basically being jerkasses. There is no moral or legal allowance for 'hey, leave us alone, we brought this to you originally so we have special rights and dispensations!' They don't.
Basically for me? WNs are whatever. It's fine to ask to drop them if you have an official LN license, but as Sam mentioned in the mail, he has no legal weight for it. I can understand asking though, as a lot of times WN are the same as the LN, if far more poorly edited. (Death March, as an example, is different in that the LN has actual new arcs and fairly extensive tweaks) So whatev. The author is the only one who can do /that/. LN? As long as there's no official translation, I like them. Soon as it's licensed? It's a happy time when we get another official license in the West and supports the process of bringing more fiction to the West.
I'm probably being less than coherent as I had a loooong day at work. But I'm sure you get my gist.
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I'm not completely aganist fan translations as I've read quite a few of them in the past and I'm sure it'll happen again.
But like others have mentioned, when a LN gets an official release, there is no need for a fan translation anymore. They have done their job(and I personally thank them for that)The message you quoted doesn't seem like a threat to me, isn't that just your personal opinion? Have the translator explicitly mentioned that he felt threatened by this? Or did he just respect J-Novel for the service they're doing?
I could also aruge that it would be a scam for fan translators to continue to translate things that have an official release(i know it's the WN)
The strong bulling the weak? More like someone is delusionally feeling threatened by the superiority of the rightfully strong ones.
Correct me if I've got something wrong.
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Yeah. I mean, I appreciate fan translators who get things out there that isn't being translated. I would never have read DXD or Date a Live, two shockingly good series in spite of strong ecchi content, without fan translators. But they don't have any sort of inherent right to translate because they got there first, and they are not being bullied for telling them to stop if it goes official (for LN) or suggesting it if the WN is very similar to the LN.
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If fan translator can have good cooperative relationship with licensor it would be better. Like being integrated as part of the project.
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Can, yeah. But it depends, really. Warnis is an exception in that his translations, even before J-Novel's editing passes, were quite high quality. A lot of translations (as thankful as I am for them) would need so much editing you might as well translate anew.
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Am I actually going to take this seriously? No, because in fact, I am smirking at everything that has been accused about J-Novel Club within the statements the following "human" has stated.
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@village-idiot said in People over at the J Novel Club are knock off Yakuza:
Just FYI that IIRC the only series Yen Press has actually issued DMCAs for is Danmachi. All other DMCAs including the great Xmass Massacre were issued by Kadokawa themselves.
They were sent by MarkMonitor on behalf of Hachette Book Group, anyone can report piracy to them via a form on their website.
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@jnovelaremonsters i agree with this. I cant read alot of light novels because they asked the fan translater to take down there work. The point for a fan translater iz for the fans not for the profit unlike these guys who want the money just to translate.
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@eric-kancso so what you saying is as long as you get get to read, it doesn’t matter if authors and publishers are fairly compensated for their work?
Clap, clap, clap
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@eric-kancso but now you're only thinking about yourself. For one second, stop thinking about yourself and realise how many people and how much time is invested in just creating one single volume.
It would be understandable if the fan translators created their own work and then gave them out to the public for free or if they translated work without any copyright.
But that's not the case now. Imagine what would happen if everyone started reading the Light novels for free. Without a doubt these light novels you love so much would cease to exist! Besides, J-Novel club isn't even demanding a fortune of money.
Now whether or notJ-Novel asked the translators to take down the work, I'm keeping myself out of that.
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Ok. I'm a firm believer in supporting the official release. Unfortunately, everyone doesn't have the ability to read Japanese. Now, if someone wants to put up their translation of an unlicensed work, I'm a bit more understanding than if there are fan translations of licensed works. The latter is wrong.
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@eric-kancso Oh No! You can only read the Light Novels JNC have Licenced on JNC and not off of some, Mafia/Yakuza/Pirate Site that asks for "donations" that goes nowhere and risk shady ads that may put a virus on your computer cuz they don't care about you. I am sure there are Translators that genuinely do care and that is why they will take down their translations of series that been licenced because they actually care. Also, I just re-read your comment cuz there was one thing that stuck with me, You said You cant read a lot of LN now cuz of the licences. This tells me that you are either lying or don't support the legal industry. There is so much LN out there that you must be lying so you can push your illegal agenda. I have 0 tolerance for stupidity and an underhanded political agenda. If you are going to be pro Piracy then stand tall and state it, do not use underhanded methods. I just can not respect you if you have no conviction.
