News Five Chinese nationals arrested in Japan for translating manga and games

I disagree, they are doing it for two things.

To discourage other people and make more money than they would be doing. Former is their right and latter is just they being assholes.

 

"I am the unoriginality of my writing
manga is my body and anime is my blood
I have created over a thousand clones
Unaware of originality
Nor aware of creativity
Withstood copy rights to create novels, waiting for police's arrival
I have no regrets. This is the only path
My whole life was Unlimited Rip-off Works"

 

The thing I love the most is the monetary losses they say have occured. I think they take every distribution then charge it full price and add that to the losses. How many of those people could have actually bought all of that? Most the series aren't even available in the home countries of the readers. Those that are often have serious problems. 4kids anyone? I used to be entertained by their stuff until I found out how heavily edited they were. Companies often edit the series to make it more home acceptable and lose so much in the process. Those are really my biggest issues.

 

Yeah true but I never said anything about "translating is bad and you are all criminals".
All I am saying is; it is their right to arrest you if you broke the laws. And if you are going broke the laws, you should be prepared for it and don't get caught. Not that I support that law. I actually don't but it is not like we could change the law itself.

It is just; it is what it is.

 

well, can't fight that, its all in the law and all.
and they have guns... thats scary

 

well shoplifting or running nude in public may not be serious but the amount of time the police investigate isnt so drastic. based on what i read this was a coordinated effort from multiple branches. you would think they were hunting a serial killer or bank robbers on a spree or something but no it was translating

 

It's unlikely that they would arrest travelers. The people in that article were living and working/studying in Japan rather than going on vacation and bringing back stuff to translate after their trip. Arresting vacationers would be bad for the tourism industry and take up a lot more resources (even more than the already large amount referenced in the article). It's also important to note that it's much easier to get caught for translating Manga and Anime - all the prosecutors have to do is point to the pictures being used since they're copies of the originals. Novel translation on the other hand require more interpretation and transformation to get similar - but never truly the exact same - meanings and implications across so it's harder to build a case against. That's not to say that you're not at risk just that the risk is really small for traveling novel translators. If you started charging for your translation services and earned a lot of money or gained a huge audience then the original copyright holders might come after you - Just look at Qidian - but on the whole you probably don't have to worry about anything other than DMCA notices.

They were licensed and they were pirated which is why they were arrested.

 

Japan has strict laws when it comes to their Manga & Games so it was bound to happen they should have at least done the translations outside of Japan

 

well in that case yeah. it is a bit too much they put into it, which is also the reason why it doesnt happen often that translators get arrested, since noone actually takes it seriously enough to focus power on (this group having translated 15k manga/anime is probaly why they would use so much manpoweer) but you cant just say ''x crime is not serious enough for the police to take notice of'' because a crime is a crime, and if you start picking out crimes that are ''non serious'' then it will quickly spiral out of control, and suddenly all minor offences becomes ''non serious''. laws the law, and a breach of the law = getting arrested

 

no one here is saying they shouldn't be arrested.....is just they are accusing for exagerate loss of profit, and this is the issue.....
The legal penalties for copyright infringement are:

1. Infringer pays the actual dollar amount of damages and profits. (they are accusing for 3,5 trilion of yen(and this is bullshit), the ammount doesn't include the expense and they aren't even selling them in first place so there isn't any "real" loss of profit)
2. The law provides a range from $200 to $150,000 for each work infringed. (this is mean they should pay for each work, not chapter...>_>)to buy copyright for works usualy goes for that ammount
3. Infringer pays for all attorneys fees and court costs.
4. The Court can issue an injunction to stop the infringing acts.
5. The Court can impound the illegal works.
6. The infringer can go to jail.

 

I think people who obtain the raws for scanalation groups have been arrested in the past. But that's more obvious to me, because it that case you're literally distributing the unedited JP copy.

On the other hand, if you read the article carefully, it says that the two Chinese people who were arrested weren't even on the "distribution" team. This is like if I went to China, typed up a translation on my laptop, and then emailed it privately to my editor. The editor (overseas) edits it, and then posts it online (overseas).

What you'll notice is that the TL didn't even post the translation technically. So it's more like they were arrested for being part of a translation group.

 

Yeah I agree.
But that is exactly what they want by giving such a harsh punishment. They want it to stop so they are trying to discourage other people. It is just what gives them maximum results with minimum effort.

You should remember tho. In their eyes, unauthorized translators are the very beings that stole money from them. And not just money, also stole their products.

and they tend to be extremely revengeful.

 

We do that now. Let someone rob your house and see how seriously the police take it.

 

well you see, those anime, games and manga have an actual price value. they look for a website and check the page view numbers. do some asian math to see how many pages were read, the type, and the local price for said type. add them together and bam, you get an estimate. its not gonna be 100% accurate but it should be around at least 80% accurate.

its not just manga: ".....unauthorized distribution of Japanese *anime, *manga, and *games" all of which have billions in yearly industry revenue not counting light novels

also in business, anything out there that that they own and didnt make money off is considered a loss. they also have people hired specifically to calculate those loses

 

By the way are all of those available officially in Chinese in China ?

Because the monetary losses are even more ridiculous if not...

 

Copyright laws are international. Doesn't matter if your government isn't part of it. The moment you step into another country that has it, they can arrest you for another country.

But, I think in this case... They just don't like how their content was Translated from Japanese into the Chinese market. Plus, they will probably arrest people that translate from JP -> EN if you stay in Japan for too long as well. Wouldn't surprise me. They are very strict with their material in said country if you don't have the rights. Hence why most JP translators stop touching most novels after it gets licensed.

 

If they are really stating more loss than the actual amount, there will be two outcome;

* It will be found out at the court and they would have to give the correct number.
* It will not be found out and they will get away with it.

I also believe it is a bullshit number. If we can see it, any judge and lawyer can also see it and they will do their job. If they get caught with evidence, then by trying to cheat, they will also have to face the consequences.
If they can't find any evidence that says the numbers are wrong, then they still have to do their work.

Basically, yeah they are assholes. Lets hope they also get caught like that translators.

 

They obviously know these charge are bs ; but it's also to send a message to the rest of the ppl who are doing this while being in japan, be careful you know what you're doing is illegal, if we can catch you it's not going to be a slap on your wrist but something you might not be able to handle.

 

The Nagoya research student allegedly translated Yuki Ochimura ni Ojō-sama! (pictured above), Hiro Fujiwara‘s crossover manga between her Maid Sama! and Yuki wa Jigoku ni Ochiru no ka? series, from a monthly manga magazine from December 2016 to September 2017 without permission.

^ This is like an obscure spinoff/crossover manga. I can't find an official Chinese published version.

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The graduate student allegedly translated the dialogue of characters in a game based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! mangafrom January 2015 to January 2016. The Asahi Shimbunpaper lists the game as Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V Tag Force Special (pictured left).

^ Yu-Gi-Oh definitely has a Chinese version, but this is a game. So an analogy would be like translating the dialogue of visual novel adaptation of a popular game (e.g. OreImo).

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^ The Association of Copyright for Computer Software reports that one of the suspects, a 23-year-old female company worker from Niiza City in Saitama Prefecture, translated the 123rd and final Kimi ni Todoke – From Me to You manga chapter. Police from Kanagawa, Ishikawa, Gifu, and Shiga Prefectures also worked on the case.

Kimi ni Todoke definitely has an official Chinese version. It's usually behind the JP (think like Naruto or One Piece scanalation status), so to me this person was translating the most recent chapter of a licensed novel that's behind in China.