News Kuma Licensing

@CountryMage
VBS in particular was commenting towards my team, thus my reaction specifically to him.

I don't think negatively of all leechers, as they're the people who read our work and we appreciate them. You're right on that.
What I don't like are the leechers like VBS who throw tantrums when the stuff they leech gets taken away. The entitled ones with a less-than-lukewarm attitude, demanding more and insulting the ones who took away their free stuff.

People are free to pick up Kuma, as I said in the post I made on the blog. However I hope they understand exactly what they're doing. Which most don't, or if they do don't care about the consequences. Attention is a powerful motivator in these circles.
That's all fine and dandy, we can't and won't force others to follow our lead. I will, however, speak negatively about them for it.

I also wouldn't say others picking up (or wanting to keep reading) Kuma makes them ungrateful, but just shows the disrespect they have for the legal side of the grey zone most of us work in.

 

If you think that claims by licensees are "fraudulent" then you don't understand what a license is. The copyright holder temporarily grants a portion of their rights to a work to another party in exchange for compensation. If the licensee is granted exclusivity then the licensee is absolutely explicitly allowed under the law to use legal means to enforce their exclusivity.

Seven Seas lawyers are probably not stupid. The contract they drew up probably gives their client the exclusive right to translate both the LN and WN. Even if they didn't, then if the LN and WN don't differ much, it's possible that they would be legally considered as being the same work anyway.

I have no idea what you mean by DMCA takedown requests being "based on a presumption of guilt." Some ISP's/Hosting Providers may treat them that way with regard to their private use policies, but they are not treated that way in the legal system. A DMCA takedown is just a step towards filing a civil lawsuit and is often accompanied by an explicit threat to do so. TL's in the US usually listen because, a.) getting involved in a lawsuit is a huge and expensive pain, and b.) they know full well that, if it actually came to trial, they would lose and it would cost them a lot of money.

 

As for the matter about a WN being excluded from the copyright even if the LN is licensed by an English publisher, you might want to read this (written by Sam, founder of J-Novel Club in reply to the same kind of discussion):

https://forum.novelupdates.com/posts/4962424/

 

When it comes to fan translation, a certain level of exposure does help the work get off its ground from the free publicity.
After a certain point, it just hurts the novel from having any chance at getting officially licensed.

It's like offering free samples. But once a fan fully translates the entire novel until the very end... they are basically handing out free ice cream in buckets.
Example: The Breaker [manwha] that never got officially translated into English.

 

Looks like someone is continuing to TL the series. Hope this doesn’t end up screwing Xant’s group over

 

tututu this cat is lucky cuz that title still published on my language despite english translation end muahahaha!

 

fun fact, The Breaker is getting an official English release. the first Omnibus volume just released last month.