Rule 3 Addendum - Translations of Others' Works

[Aaron Hardin]

Yes. Creative industries often have winner-take-all pay curves and aren't sustainable as a sole income source unless you're in a relatively small top percentage of earners. That's got nothing to do with copyright either way though, it's just the nature of the game you're playing.

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Uh, copyright is why those wages exist at all, there have been a couple of notable cases of Copyright being bypassed in different ways in the US to prevent needing to pay fees to the original author, and while the second was relatively minor (all those messages about books with stripped covers and the author not being paid came about because of the people selling copies of Lord of the Rings by Tolkien without covers to avoid paying the author, but the copyright still turned out pretty well), the big one that really got screwed over was L Frank Baum, the writer of the Wizard of Oz, who also wrote 12 sequels afterwards, but the case of his works becoming open domain essentially followed by a lot of authors writing another 40 plus OZ books without him seeing a dime, pus not seeing a dime from the Wizard of Oz movie (so a lot of money was made on this, but he didn't get much of any of it).

Having a copyright on a book is not a monopoly in the same way that owning an apple tree is not a monopoly. Yes, you are the only owner of that apple tree and no one else has it, so you have sole ownership of the apples it produces until you sell it, but there are plant of other apples that are similar (other books in the same genre), and there are also plenty of other varieties of apples (books in different genres).

It is why economists do not view copyrights generally as monopolies, because there are generally similar substitutes easily available so if you jack up the price of your story to say $1,000, the response from people is that they will buy a different book, not that they won't read a book at all.

A monopoly is where there is not a substitute, such as if you live in a place with only one high speed internet provider and they raise the price by $30 a month, you chooses are to either suck it up or go without high speed internet.

 

[Thunder God]

As we have seen with events like Funko's recent takedown of all of Itch.io, the existence of those rules and structures does not mean anything when large media enterprises decide not to care and flex their power in the space, which QQ cannot afford.

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I didn't even know about it until now, it's a relief that it's online again, but yeah, for things like this it's better to play it safe than take too many risks.

 

[Otokonoko Culture]

The administration is banning translated novels written by individuals other than the original artist to preemptively avoid legal issues

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They're just banning unauthorized translations. Authorized translations can continue just fine.

 

[TRN]

I for one, am quite glad to see this reasonable and measured decision. Considering that there is every possibility that the first person to attempt to take down a translation or anything else goes directly to the registrar or host, I am glad that QQ has taken the stance of affirmative proof of permission for works that are not in the relatively(and I do mean that literally) safe and sane position of being fair use by way of being transformative fan fiction.

Beyond that, as a(hack) writer, I would honestly prefer that the forum not end up constantly spammed with threads that have absolutely no interaction with the original author or anyone involved in the creative process. Translations aren't like the rest of what is hosted here, there's no getting involved with a story as it is spun into reality. That they are allowed here at all is by the grace of the administrators alone, because even with proper permission, they don't really belong or fit here.

I mean no offense with that, but translations don't have the same feeling in terms of getting to interact with the authors that everything else here has. There's something special about getting to actually voice your insane theories about the future of the story with an author, especially if they decide to troll you just a bit. That simply is impossible with translations, the author isn't here, and doesn't have a single clue what you're saying.

Regardless of if the move is motivated by feeling, legal liability, respect for the authors, or just because that's how the coin landed, I fully endorse the move to ban the move to not allow translations without permission. It may be impossible to be perfect with it, but it should hopefully make the lives of those who volunteer their time and effort to maintain this place just a little easier. And Gods above and below know that volunteer staff put up with far too much shit with too little thanks.

 

[Marethyu05]

First and foremost, watching people throw Freedom of Speech, an amendment meant to protect our speech from the government, at our Porn Overlords is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. Second, the fact that people are complaining about getting their mtl slop removed from here is wild. Like trust me boys, there are sites out there designed for making the slop a little bit easier to consume, I would know as I've been using them for the better part of a decade. Third, I think the rule while maybe not perfect is for the better. There's something fundamentally different from making a fanfic, and translating one. It's been established that you make your own original content in some shape or form even if you're playing in someone else's sandbox. Translating isn't really producing original content, not to say that it isn't valuable or important, but even throwing in the fact that not everything is a 1 to 1 translation, and it's a translators job to connect the two meanings in a way that makes sense, that still isn't really producing new content, it's moreso making sense of already produced content.

. Nobody likes the guy at the slop eating table pretending that his slop is better than everyone else's

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Is this a NorthernLion quote?

Things like how translations can't possibly reduce potential readership of the original due to the language barrier existing

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I disagree with you heavily bro. Now you said translation in general here, so I'm assuming you're talking about original works as well, which can have several negative effects, fanfics aren't as bad purely bc there isn't as much skin in the game but most of the principles still stand.
Note: I'm not saying you just shouldn't pirate things, there's a lot of reasons for pirating something, which most translations online are pirated, and it's definitely not victimless.
1. Posting a translation of a work can absolutely ruin any future efforts for the author to post a translation. In fact, this is one fo the big reasons I think Webnovel went downhill the way it did. They had this voting system for selecting new novels that would receive translation by their team, and would post the first 20-50 chapters so people could see if they liked it. When people found a novel they liked, they would then just go to another site that mtl'd the raws, and then once Webnovel actually started translating, it wouldn't receive any support bc they already had the novel, albeit as slop.
2. Even if they don't plan to eventually translate it, you can do as other people in this thread and the community do and mtl it yourself, acquire the raws, and then run it through a translator and an Ai to clean it up. Cut out the middleman and you can get the same product while supporting the original author. Of course that's if you don't pirate the raws. Now both of those were about how it could negatively affect the income of an original author.
Speaking on translated fanfics, well I don't think fanfics in general should make money off their content. If an author wants to sell writing advice, commissions, and original works through Patreon, that's awesome, but not actual chapters of fanfics. But realistically it probably doesn't economically impact the author, it just means you don't respect their wishes and that speaks more to your character than anything else.

Finishing this up, and going to a point made earlier, I think all y'all just need to give your balls a tug instead of your shaft and mtl it yourself. Keeping it a buck, if you're paying for early access to mtl chapters, you should probably have your interest pass revoked. Even if you don't want to put the effort in to do it yourself, there's plenty of free websites out there.

P.S. This isnt an attack on pirating. Everyone has their reasons, and nobody really cares but don't sit on a high horse and pretend the reason you're pirating it is that there's no way to support the original author, whether that be through purchasing their work or providing some form of engagement.

 

[Vanbers]

Is this a NorthernLion quote?

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I don't know who that is, so I don't think so.

 

[Marethyu05]

I don't know who that is, so I don't think so.

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He's a YouTuber, except he's really based. Like he's a functioning member of society, and he calls out his chat when they aren't. He did a shit ton of Binding of Isaac and Slay the Spire content. He also has collaborated with Ludwig. Iyou check out the YouTube channel Library of Leterneau, it has most of his based points and discourses. And in one of his videos someone was complaining about the fact that he was playing one game over another, and he said something about how the viewer was choosing to consume the slop(the stream) when he didnt have to, and yet was still complaining about it. I highly recommend checking him out.

 

[Azraelith]

You're telling everyone that simply because they're annoyed at losing something they should give up everything else and dedicate their life to a difficult pursuit to solve a problem that is incredibly easily solved by just having the translation.

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Ha… Heh.

Hahaha… oh wait you're serious?

Oh damn I can't even. Lol. Lmao, even. I'm going to go ahead and point out that if you think translations are that important then there's plenty and I mean plenty of other sites to get that quick and easy fix.

Strawman. He didn't say that QQ administration were cowards, you're putting words in his louth.

The rules of a website don't supercede the law, and the law has been abused in the past to take websites down.

In your opinion. The website is free, and there are other sites you can go to to get translated foreign novel.

Furthermore, 'worsening the site for its consumers' implies QQ was made to host translated novels rather than the actual purpose of hosting erotic fanfiction, quests, and original stories/quests.

The administration is banning translated novels written by individuals other than the original artist to preemptively avoid legal issues, but they're also every bit in their right to ban it as something that the poster didn't write themselves.

TLDR; Boohoo. The fanfiction site isn't hosting original works posted without the creator's consent anymore. The administration can do whatever the hell they want, and you can still get your xianxia slop elsewhere.

You may have detected a bit of dispassionate lack of care at the end there, but rest assured, you're completely correct about how little I care.

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Finally someone's calling out the extremely obvious reasons that it's being done. Honestly it's making my brain hurt with how convoluted some people in this thread are trying to reach. Public domain? Copyright laws?

Bruh it's literally people just translating shit then trying to typically put up patreon or something to get paid for it. Not even original work, piggybacking off someone else then trying to give the paper thin excuse of: l-look! I made it so you can r-read it! Totally worth $5 a month right!?

Lmfao.