Hi guys! This is gonna be a pretty long post so buckle up! I recently just started my own little translation group this month just as a hobby and a way to polish up my Chinese skills but of course after translating 10 chapters, I realized that I didn't really have the author's approval to translate her work (forgive me for being so slow in realizing this things, this is a first for me) and so with much effort, I've managed to find her contact and ask if I could translate her work however since she replied back that since her work was already signed with a publishing house, it would create copyright disputes so I respected that and took down all that work. I really wanted to start another series to translate and I did find one in mind that I wanted to translate immediately but there are a lot of questions that I wish you guys could help enlighten me . 1) Authors' contacts (Chinese web novels) are so hard to find. Is there any platform where I'm able to privately message them for permission to translate their works. (I managed to find the author that I first translated in Weibo, thanks to my Chinese friend, but I don't want to keep relying on her for future series that I'm interested in translating). What are your tips in finding Chinese authors contacts? 2) If you couldn't find the contact of the author or haven't received a reply in months, would you translate it first and then continue to find him/her? or would you just take the risk and not contact the author and just continue translating whatever series you deem intriguing? 3.) How many series do you know are actually author-approved translations in novelupdates? Should I just not care about the author's stamp of approval? PS I have really strong ethic code and finding out that what I'm doing may be illegal and can bite me in the future causes me distress and guilt but I really love translating Chinese web novels.
You might want to contact some of the bigger groups (Volare or WW for example) as they might have more experience on how to dig out the contact info ... It seems as if most translators just translate and only drop it once the author says NO, or the publisher shows up, without too much bother about the consent of either party. option 1: translate option 2: translate option 3: translate ... How about an option to only translate once you got the ok of the rights holder (should be the publisher in the end as I think most Chinese authors forfeit their rights for international publishing along with their souls)?
Since you said that the author's work is already published. Rather than the author, you should contact the publishing house instead. Just ask for permission. It is better to have an agreement between two sides. If you're not permitted, then you can just find another work or just translate anyway(the downside is, when they'll ask you to stop, you stop. Else, you'll get DMCA-ed) But, it's China, where capitalism is severe even though they said they're not. I doubt it'll be easy, especially if the works' publisher is Qidian.
If you really want to translate that novel till the end, you should try to contact the author first to avoid copyright. But if you don't really care about this that much (It's a hobby after all), then go ahead and do it, just don't forget to stop when copyright came.
I think if you can't get the author permission, you should not translate that novel. If copyright came and you must take away your translation, it will pain yourself and your readers. For safety reason, maybe you can only translate novel that you already got permission from the author?
Well first of all, licensing with a publishing house unless specifically stated does not mean giving up all copyrights. Generally licensing is by region unless stated. Second of all, I'm not sure what country you are from but in the US at the very least, violation of copyright is not illegal. It is a civil offense, not a criminal one. Also which publishing house owns the work? Maybe you can contact them and ask. Tell them they are free to use your translations if they want in the future.
Might actually just do what you said and translate and drop it when author says No because that's what I did for the first series. I find that as long as I message them and apologize really formally, there wouldn't be as backlash as I've seen in other translators threads. The reason why I didn't add translate once I got the 'ok' from the holder is because I feel that authors rarely give the 'ok' sign and moreover, this case is during the period of not being able to find the author's contact so I can't really add that as an option.
I hate Gizmodo but here https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 Basically pirating only hurts major blockbuster movies. In fact as far as games are concerned it can lead to a boost of sales.
Are you dead set on releasing this translation to the community or are you doing this because you want your own English copy and are just willing to share it with the community? If the former, then wait until you have some kind of basis on which believe what you are doing is not against any law, if the latter, then just start translating now, and once you have permission, then release to the community and if you never get permission, keep it password locked on your hard drive for your own personal use only.
really~ why you translate on first place? just remember that~ ask other well known translator~ again why you translate on first place? it related to your action later~ you can learn from Baka-Tsuki example~ or WuxiaWorld, GravityTales and heck even Qidian International~ who knows~ it's your translation=~ only your consciousness which will affect yourself~ you are free to choice follow your own ethic or break it right away~
If you're not making money from it, nobody bothers to give you grief if you translate. You may one day be asked to stop translating, but you won't be sued if you don't make money from it. This is the real meaning of fan-translation. You're translating without getting anything in return, except maybe your Chinese gets better. If you need to find a justification, just consider 'Fair Use Policy' in which you're translating for the purpose of (your) education. This way, your act of translating the novel is legal. However, it doesn't make sharing your translation legal. If you share your translation for the public to read, you've broken copyright law and depending on which country is involved, you've probably broken some commercial law as well. However, if you don't make money from this, they won't prosecute you. They can, but they won't because suing you in court will be much more expensive and take a very long time to settle. And since you don't make money, there's even the chance that the lawsuit will be trashed because it wastes their time. tl;dr It's fine to translate without permission. If you don't make money from the translation, you can even share it without worrying about lawsuits. It's illegal, but nobody really cares nowadays, so just do what your heart tells you.