Regarding qidian’s privileged thing

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by ZXu2002, Oct 11, 2019.

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Is qidian’s business model bad

  1. Yes

    53 vote(s)
    62.4%
  2. No

    8 vote(s)
    9.4%
  3. Depends

    24 vote(s)
    28.2%
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  1. firefox1234

    firefox1234 Well-Known Member

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    Preach!
    To be honest more than a few of QI's translations are of poor quality if one is actually paying for it on top of the fact that there translators can be as flaky as fan translators and did I forget to add that you are paying for this?! I have seen more than a few novels not have translations for months to a year and what is the guy who spent all his cash on SS to read an unfinished story supposed to do? Shrug his shoulders that the translator is flaky or his particular novel wasn't popular enough to merit it being completed? Consumers are greedy no doubt but QI operate in bad faith and very much do deserve all the criticism they get.
    Makes you wonder where all those funds are going if they can't even get proper proofreaders. No one complains about being overcharged when they can see where they money is going.
     
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  2. tides

    tides Well-Known Member

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    just to clarify

    many people were already using patron to gain access to advance chapters and webnovel was just doing what they did.
    back then, they also have daily free chapters too just like WW

    but even then, everyone was still bashing WN and now, it's just like their CN site where chapters are locked after XX chapters and no more free daily chapters i think...

    actually a ton of the hate was from WW vs WN

    and then cktalon kept on fanning the fumes

    if you can search for his older posts, you'd realize that almost everything he said about WN has turned out to be false

    it's really sad because so many things happened during that period and even tapread came but became a massive disappointment

    tapread was supposed to be a proper competitor and should have just dual hosted the stuff that was already translated on other sites instead of putting up their garbage MTL.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2019
  3. etvolare

    etvolare Celestial Fluff

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    I generally don't like to get involved in drama, but it's fascinating to see how narratives and perception have shifted about this entire affair after a few years. So here's my two cents, as someone personally involved in it all! Note: opinion and how reality is perceived through etvo tinted lenses lol.

    WW and WN originally had a contract for the OG 20 novels, with the understanding that there would be rounds of future authorizations handed out for other novels (as ongoing partnerships usually work). As I understand it, the 11 that shifted over from Gravity were considered to fall under this umbrella agreement. Now, let's set that aside since both sides differ in their explanation of this.

    The way how WN chose to handle the break down of this was what ignited a lot of hate towards them, and that antagonism has carried down through the years. Final decisions about this partnership fall through, and WN decided to take to NUF to publicly rip up the contract, accuse WW of being pirates, and round out that impressive first-post-to-community with a recruitment shoutout to WW translators.

    And honestly, there's probably a bit of cultural differences at play here. Maybe this works well in the East, whereas in the West, not even a sleep-deprived, drunk, and coked out PR firm would advocate this as the most optimal way to conclude failed talks and introduce themselves to the market.

    There's a saying that 'you are the company you keep', which definitely comes into play why WN/Qidian is so disliked in the community. Some translators did initially move to WN, of which the most high profile was CKTalon. He's mentioned throughout this thread and many dislike him for varying reasons, be it shill-like behavior, publicly turning on WW, etc. Another was GGP and continuously denying to the community that he'd sold out to WN. When all came to light in the company's filings, that ignited another firestorm of drama about this shady behavior (Gravity staff found through reddit posts).

    But okay, those are third parties and not official Qidian actions. What the company did to garner so much dislike is IMO, a series of really bad PR missteps. After promising the community up and down there would be no paywall (CK spoke of this: https://twitter.com/etvofluff/status/1146446585678532608. There's an argument to be made that if Qidian really had disagreed, they would've told their highly paid star translator not to disseminate misleading info), an adwall came into being at the end of 2017/beginning of 2018.

    From then on it stepped up to a premium (pay) system for the most popular novels, then a site-wide paywall, then a short-lived elite system was added (quickly cancelled, never good for customers), and now a privilege system that was originally spun as the same as Patreon for advance chapters. The uproar that ensued when readers found out they were paying for the 'privilege' to buy advance chapters, essentially paying 2x for the same content, was a sight to see: https://twitter.com/etvofluff/status/1146442340300550146

    I say PR differences because at the end of the day, which company doesn't need to make money? Employees need to be paid, and there's nothing run with wanting to turn a profit. However, execution of strategy is everything. There's backtracking, there's broken promises, there's unannounced changes to SS awarding/pricing, and an attitude that comes through as a thick layer condescension (I mean really, readers handing over $$ is called privilege?).

    I'll leave this longass post with something that stood out very clearly in my mind. When Qidian first arrived in the scene, translators were both excited, hopeful, and apprehensive. With the circulation of their OG translator contract, our apprehension was quickly confirmed. The very first clause of that contract said that in signing the contract, the translator acknowledges they were translating illegally and is responsible for harming the company by doing so.

    The scene back then was very different from it now, where there are multiple avenues to gain authorizations (and frankly, IMO everyone should). No one got into translating to make it their full-time job. It was fun and games, and somehow the enormous readership developed. Sure, it would've been much better to have authorizations, but really, which of these giant Chinese publishers would listen to a college student going, "Hey!! I really love XX novel and have been translating it. Will you license it to me please?"

    The market wouldn't be here without those OG translators taking hours for one chapter. Qidian itself had tried to enter the English market with a Singapore sub back in... ~2007 and closed up shop after spending a ton of money. Yet right away, blame is being cast and fingers pointed. It just seemed to me that that really set the tone of what things were to come, and a darned shame because they really have a fantastic library.

    Edit: And all that only deals with translations! For actual draconian terms, check out what they've got for authors! https://twitter.com/etvofluff/status/1170345066235191296
     
  4. kryuzei

    kryuzei Well-Known Member

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    I remember spending only like 10 bucks a month back when I was still reading Black Tech Cultivation (or whatever it is called, it's the one with internet cafe in cultivation world). People should also count on how much free stones you can get a day rather than just counting on paid stones.

    Anyway, I feel like people doesn't really gives a shit either way. There's so many aggregrators site out there so it's normal to see reviewer counts go down after you reach certain points. The only people who still comment on that site are either people who just want to support the writer, got too much money or got a good management with their free stones.
     
  5. Defiring

    Defiring Well-Known Member

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    You don't get to sue a translator for this. You get to file a DMCA, then if your DMCA is ignored, you send a seize and desist letter, and then if that's ignored, you can sue. So yeah, it's much better to come to an agreement with the author. But authors rarely ever file DMCAs anyway, because if they do get rid of the website, it won't be of any use due to all those websites that automatically copy the translator's work and spawn all over the place.
    Even those automatic MTL websites play a part in it; after all, most of the time, authors can't tell the difference between a proper translation and an awful MTL.
    From my experience with Japanese authors, when you talk to them a bit, they usually end up telling you that they're fine with letting you translate as long as you don't share illustrations and whatnot. If they have a publisher, that's another story.
     
  6. senhyou

    senhyou Active Member

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    Well no, english translation are in fact, a grey zone. and the did threaten translators. an example of this is the whole shit about qidian and wuxiaworld.
     
  7. kenar

    kenar ヽ(`・ω・´)ゝ

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    Translating is in a grey zone as long as they don't distribute it and/or monetize it without IP holder's permission.
     
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  8. Sheepo

    Sheepo 『Pyoo's Fated One』

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    They are, in fact, not in a grey zone as soon as they make money with it.

    You can argue that free translations are in a grey zone, but again the only example of this being allowed I could find was a author/publisher strictly saying that there will be no publications in that language, thus removing any kind of conflict of interests. Anything else will most likely still get taken down...

    And no, Qidian did not threaten WW as far as I can tell. WW broke their contract, and Qidian got pissed of. Completeley understandable behavior...
     
  9. Fulminata

    Fulminata Typo-ist | Officer of Heavenly Inc. |

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    Broadly speaking, the act of translating a copyright work always requires a permission from the author/license holder, aside for personal use. If the translation is distributed for public consumption without the permission from the author/license holder, no matter whether the said translation is distributed for free or not, it's most likely to be illegal.

    In practice, a fan translation that was distributed for public consumption can be argued to fall under the "grey area" as long as : a) the author/license holder doesn't know of its existence; and/or b) the author/license holder doesn't mind.
    After all, IP rights can only be enforced if the author/license holder actively use them.

    So in short, usually, it's not exactly illegal nor legal if there's no response from the author/license holder. But from the a perspective, it's morally wrong.

    -disclaimer : this is not a legal advice. The legislation regarding IP may greatly vary from country to country.
     
  10. rwxwuxiaworld

    rwxwuxiaworld Well-Known Member

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    Not true whatsoever. Not even Webnovel has ever claimed WW breached our contract, nor would they want to because if we did, by what fig leaf excuse would they continue to host the translations they stole from us? If you actually followed what happened back when it happened, Webnovel ASKED us to bring on further novels which they promised in writing they would continue to license to us in batches (like the first batch of twenty), because doing things one novel/contract at a time took too long. Eventually, they offered to buy us for a seven digit sum, and I declined because of serious disagreements when it came to business plans. At that point, they lied and claimed publicly on NUF that we brought on new novels without talking to them, and attempted to take down our entire website with DMCA’s to our then-server hosts on the same day they copied all of our Qidian-based translations to their own site and advertised it on NUF. You tell me what the plan was.

    It’s pretty clear to me that although they genuinely wanted to buy us like they did Gravity (how did that turn out?), they also prepared the groundwork to try and fuck us in the event I said no, which I did. We simply made sure that didn’t happen :)

    The only reason I rarely post on this subject here these days is because I’ve already said everything that needs to be said, numerous times.
     
  11. philosopher17

    philosopher17 Well-Known Member

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    Why do I keep seeing posts comparing garbage tier literature that's meant for pulp reading with edited, published and vetted works of the most successful author in the world ever, literally the only billionaire minted purely our of book rights that isn't an estate (aka the Tolkien estate) on qidian related posts.

    Comparing pulp novels whose model is to pad chapters because they charge per word and are essentially of the quality of fanfiction.net works with publisher vetting, marketing, agency costs, cost of being a physical product, printing, design( you know, not just stealing artwork like qidian novels).
     
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  12. Shio

    Shio Moderator Staff Member

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    Hard cover novels are great. The grip when reading are way better, and it feels more sturdy.
     
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  13. BurgerKong

    BurgerKong Well-Known Member

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    Price. As I stated in another thread if you work out how much text you're getting for your money it equates to roughly the same as a paperback.

    It's roughly 200 words per Spirit Stone, and an average novel is estimated to be around 90,000 words. So to get that much content would be 450 stones, and the price option closest to that is $10 for 500 SS.

    They need to either cut the price to match the quality or up the quality to match the price. As it stands Webnovel is not providing a good value proposition.
     
  14. Invisalats

    Invisalats The Bearded One

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    I just spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what you are doing with a book that makes the grip and sturdy feel important...Also do you remove the slip cover on hardbacks that come with them? I hate that loose slippery plastic cover thing.
     
  15. etvolare

    etvolare Celestial Fluff

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    Goodness gracious, it's like my entire post was overlooked. As for threatening, Qidian was interested in volare for a while as well. They sent us a hit list of their novels ranked in the order of desirability, then upped and announced new translations of their own (of the less popular novels on the list) as our talks were still ongoing. I wonder what was going to happen if we didn't comply? Surely they wouldn't start moving up that list, oh no. Mucho friendly. Mucho nonthreatening.

    Ren's got the verbal part of the threatening covered, and as someone whose translations have been ripped off WW, I've experienced the actions of them doing so. For a while when SOTR wasn't on their site, searches of "SOTR" would be met with a variation of "This novel isn't currently on our site, why don't you go ask the translator to work with us?". I mean, it's kind of impressive that they got readers to harass translators, which thankfully not many in the community did so.

    So they rip over a thousand chapters of my work from WW, strip out my translator notes, monetized it with an adwall in the beginning (of which I didn't see a cent), and I've no clue what they're doing with it now. Just that there's over 10M views on the novel, no biggee.

    And if I sound annoyed, I really am lol. A significant chunk of my earnings every month goes to Qidian for the licensing of this novel. I work my butt off and throw events and celebrations, all for this kind of nonsense to happen? Surely everyone has better, more productive, more worthwhile things to do with their time and effort.
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2019
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  16. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    vanilla huh.png
    it still going?
    so you read wn on phone? yeah kinda feel off if you used to reading book
     
  17. kobatochandaisuki

    kobatochandaisuki Well-Known Member

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    And it feels weird when you try to go back from reading on mobile to reading paper books again. Paper books are more inconvenient once u get used to reading on mobile cuz 1. Much more expensive 2. Heavier 3. Can't scroll down or reopen very easily where u were 4. Turning page is a hassle 5. U cut ur fingers 6. Can get wet or dirty or rip and u can't really fix the damage 7. Can't put in ur pocket 8. Take a lot of place 9. Using only one hand is inconvenient 10. U always have to face it upward unlike the phone u can read while laid on your bed in whichever position

    But yeah, the sensation of the paper is still a good thing so once in a while, it's not so bad reading on paper
     
  18. Shio

    Shio Moderator Staff Member

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    Read them, ofc. I hate softcover that will get destroyed after 1-2 years.
     
  19. Guan Zhong

    Guan Zhong Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, same. Better quality paper and bindings. You just can't beat sewn clothbound hardcovers. Some of my favorite books I only have in paperback because that's all that's in print nowadays, and they are getting worn. Will have to replace them soon. All my hardcovers are still in great condition.
     
  20. asriu

    asriu fu~ fu~ fu~

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    unless it document I never get used to mobile~
    rather than scrolling I prefer switching page
     
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