Stopping image translation

Discussion in 'Tech Discussion' started by Eques, Jan 16, 2020.

  1. Eques

    Eques Translation machine (not)

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    Hey there, guys, I need advice.
    As you know, there are pages and apps allowing you to translate text from a picture. Is there any way to stop this?
    (I have a problem with pages stealing translation - I thought posting images would stop them but nooope.)
     
  2. Amaruna Myu

    Amaruna Myu ugly squid dokja (●´∀`●)

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    use a text that ocr cant scan?(but will lead to difficulties of reader)
    there are some apps that disallow screenshot by user but I don't know how that works.
     
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  3. Shio

    Shio Moderator Staff Member

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    Don't post your translation. Just record audio book instead : p
     
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  4. criticalmind

    criticalmind Enter Chunni Name Here

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    My best guess would be either use fancy fonts for the text or add noise to the image.

    If you want to use noise, you can use ImageMagick or similiar tools. You'll have to balance how much you can add without ruining it for your readers.

    Also, google docs can extract text from images. Once you try a few possible solutions, you can check the impact it has there.
     
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  5. FranckOA

    FranckOA Killer Klown From Outer Space

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    Be carefull, if you protect so much your translation that it is more confortable for readers to read it on an aggregator than your website, you kinda missed the whole point of fan-translating.

    I had to drop quite a few novels because the anti-copy protection scheme the translator used made reading it way to unpractical or a litteral pain in the eye (and some because they added stuff like bitcoin mining scripts, dodgy auto-redirections or so much intrusive ads that agregators seem selfless compared to it).
     
  6. Eques

    Eques Translation machine (not)

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    Lol, with my accent, listening to the chapter would be... an experience indeed XD

    Thank you very much, I'll try this! ❤

    By no means I want to make things uncomfortable for readers (I've read several novels on aggregators too, for exactly this reason). I plan to do this for only a few chapters - there's a certain foreign site which mtl-s my translations and charges money for them, which, pardon my French, p*sses me off. I'm aware this won't stop them but I want to make things a little more difficult for them.
     
  7. FranckOA

    FranckOA Killer Klown From Outer Space

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    By the way, french is my native language so I'm happy to inform you that "p*sses me off" is not a french term, it's probably english (or maybe american, as the two languages are somehow close). :blobtaco:

    Why people assume that french is a rude language, it's certainly not true, non de dieu de bordel de merde...
     
  8. Eques

    Eques Translation machine (not)

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    LOL :blobrofl:
    I'm sorry then, I hope you didn't find my words offensive.:blob_coffee:
    (Btw, I googled that phrase: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_my_French. No comment on "p*sses me off" and "non de dieu de bordel de merde" :blobpeek:)
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2020
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  9. Ral

    Ral Not a Well-Known Member ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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    If they can't copy/extract the text, they'll copy the images themselves. There's no way of blocking it - there will always be a workaround...
    That's one of the reasons I gave up on scanlating - only some of the old users stuck around to read on my website, while the rest kept reading on various aggregators...
    Yeah, no. There's Google Recorder or Live Transcribe. It's easy to extract the text now.

    @Eques the only way I can think of that would make it harder for pirates to steal from you and not be too hard on a reader would be a time release rollout text. You know, like QI has a lock after a paragraph, but instead of forcing people to pay, set a realistic time release that'll automatically roll out the next part of the text, then the next part, until the end.
    It'd have to be chunks of text big enough that readers wouldn't have to wait for the next part, yet bots would have already copied the partial script.
    The text couldn't be kept on a page whole and just be obstructed, it'd need to be imported in parts from within your site.
    This would require quite a bit of coding knowledge, though.
     
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  10. FranckOA

    FranckOA Killer Klown From Outer Space

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    No problem, I just got bit by an "useless triva" bug at this time and wanted to be informative. :blobsalute:
    But one advantage of not talking english natively is that you can bypass the anti-rude words bots and filters easily by using your local language (or by changing the words a little, like using "non" instead of "nom")... :blobparty:

    That would be a nightmare in term of accessibility, but sadly most people doesn't care about that when working on a website... :blobcry:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 31, 2020
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  11. Eques

    Eques Translation machine (not)

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    None of us has enough technical knowledge to handle this :sweating_profusely:
    Well, I mostly want to stop a certain foreign translator from copy-pasting the text and mtl-ing it - since he charges money for reading, he should at least type it out. :blobupset:
     
  12. Jeebus

    Jeebus Well-Known Member

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    Deep learning has enabled computers to read text in an image about as well as a human can. That's why Google stopped using text in its Captcha and ReCaptcha systems. If a human can read something, so can a computer. Adding in watermarks or things to thwart OCR won't matter much to a computer, but it will upset your readers.

    Almost anything you do to inconvenience a thief will also inconvenience some or all of your readers. Putting in invisible text will affect anyone using a screen reader. Using images will mean your users will need to use more data to access your work, and if you're paying for bandwidth, you might end up having to pay more for website hosting.

    You really only have two options: legal action or doing nothing. Use DMCA or whatever mechanism exists in your country to get the stuff taken offline. If the thief continues to steal your work, you can consider suing him, but keep in mind that a lawsuit like that in the US would cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. Alternatively, you could just ignore it. Learning to let it go can be difficult, but it's the healthiest option. It won't cost you much, and it will allow you to put your effort into more fruitful and productive pursuits.
     
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  13. Ral

    Ral Not a Well-Known Member ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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    Somehow I doubt he can sue somebody for retranslating his fan translations...

    If he's machine translating, are you sure he's using your English translations as a source? Wouldn't using original language be better?
    I get what you mean though - I once had a Spanish scanlator join my team (as a typesetter, I think) so he could have a prior access to our translations and have a ready to go Spanish version for when we publish ours. Once he even used it to post his version ahead of ours - he got booted soon after ^^;
     
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  14. Eques

    Eques Translation machine (not)

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    I'm translating for fun (and for free) so taking legal action is honestly not worth the bother (it's not the translation that bothers me but charging money for reading). And I'm not sure if it would even work because I don't hold the rights to the novel or anything.
    Honestly, it's not as if I'm losing sleep over it, it's just a liiiiiiiiiittle bit annoying. I'm mostly ignoring it but then someone else from the same site began doing the same with my other novel and it narked me so I'm revisiting this topic.

    Yeah, I'm sure - I change enough things that my version and the mtl-ed raw chapter are noticeably different (like swapping Chinese idioms for English idioms and such). Mtl-ing from Chinese? Are you kidding? Why would he, when there's a much easier to mtl English translation?
    Wow, that was... "Shameless" might be the word, I think. :blobsweat:
     
  15. Jeebus

    Jeebus Well-Known Member

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    He might not have the right to publish his translations of the source material, but his translations are still his intellectual property and are protected by law. Whether it's wise to pursue legal action is another matter. That's why I mentioned the 5 or 6 figure cost of litigating this if it were to go to trial.

    Regardless, filing a DMCA with the company that hosts the offending website could get results. The best part is that filing a DMCA takedown is cheap and relatively painless.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2020
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