Hello, It has come to my attention that a few translations have recently been stolen and are being sold on Amazon for Kindle readers. The seller appears to be completely unaffiliated with the translators who worked hard to produce (FREE) translations for us to read. Look up "Black XS" on the amazon kindle section to see their stolen content (I'd post a link but I don't have permissions). Help me leave spread the word and stop people from buying! There's already reviews from people who have clearly bought the novels. Fight back with one star reviews! Protect our precious translators! -- Edit: I can now post links so here's the link to the seller's stuff https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27:Black+Xs&s=relevancerank&text=Black+Xs&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1 -- Edit 2: Direct links to the novels so that you can leave reviews, as suggested by Yansu https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08943YLH1/ https://www.amazon.com/Tale-Adult-Which-Has-End-ebook/dp/B0898T111Q/ https://www.amazon.com/SCREEN-PARTNER-Novel-Story-Lover-ebook/dp/B088DX532J/ https://www.amazon.com/SCREEN-PARTNER-Novel-Story-Lover-ebook/dp/B088DW7JWZ) https://www.amazon.com/Thai-Novel-Mechanics-Story-Lover-ebook/dp/B0888417Z5/ https://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Story-Romance-Novels-Romantic-ebook/dp/B088PZHHKL https://www.amazon.com/Princes-Loyal-Lover-Short-stories-ebook/dp/B087NLDNLK/
You can find campione sold in different title.. That guy change the title even the author but not the content I guess.. Since the synopsis literally the same Saw it from oda nobuna LN FB page
Can you give a link to the translations stolen and a sample from Kindle? Sorry but the way the world is now, we can't really take anyone's word for anything without evidence. Too many people that jump to conclusions out there so sorry, we need an example of the texts to see if it was really plagerized.
@Tony, hello and sorry for the ping, I just think the issue might become something really serious and hope this thread can stay longer in the lists or at the front page of NUF so more people can see it. Good day btw
Not that I doubt the validity of your words, but how are you sure they were plagiarized? Otoh, as they are translations of original works, wouldnt this also fall under the preview of the original publishers as well?
If you look at the “look inside” part of “The Prince’s Loyal Lover” and then look at BC Novel’s translation, you’ll see it is exactly the same, pictures and glossary of terms included.
I need to get my total posts to more than 5 before I can post a link, but you can look up "Black XS kindle" on amazon (Black XS is the seller's ID) and it will bring you to the results. One of the stolen translations is Screen Partner, and I know Kleep isn't the one selling it, considering she's translated it for free.
As Anra has pointed out, these novels that Black XS is selling on Amazon are copy/paste of translations that may be found on NU, and were originally free to read. The translators' hard work and intellectual property have been stolen for profit by this thief.
Think the bigger question is how will the original author and publisher going to react once they find out not only that someone translating the novels in question, but that even a second party tried to sell them as well.
Wherein comes the concern over the translations being stolen for profit like this. There's several authors that agree to allow people to translate their works into other languages, usually under the stipulation that the translations can be read for free, or don't care, because the translations are (again) available for free (and in a language that makes it available for an audience that may not have been able to access those novels originally due to language barriers). Stealing the translations and putting them up for profit on Amazon causes concern for several reasons.
Guys, one word of warning: If you do want to leave bad reviews to warn customers that these translations are stolen ones, then please use the direct link (e.g., for the first one in the list: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08943YLH1/) The reason behind this is that the other links have markers for how people found the stories (e.g. the words somebody searched for or links that were followed). If several people use the exact same marked link, this may very well be a reason for the reviews being counted as fake by Amazon, thus giving grounds to delete them. If you want to leave reviews on the other stories but don't know what the direct link is: It's always the amazon url, then "/dp/" plus the ASIN (aka the strange combination of numbers/letters) - Basically, you can just delete everything from the link that isn't any of that.
Stil does not change the fact that they sell other peoples work without permision. So even if the original work is plagarized or not does not matter. The work is still owned by the TL, even if the story and the copyright is owned by the author/publisher. And as far as I know most TL ask for permision from the author before posting anything.
Speaking from experience as someone who regularly deals with this stuff on Amazon and elsewhere, it does unfortunately happen frequently. A flood of one star reviews though, especially from accounts which haven't bought the ebooks, might just trigger a spam filter and cause the reviews to be removed. There is a proper route which translators can and should use to request that Amazon removes the ebooks from sale: filling out their infringement report form, which follows the format of a DMCA notice. This can only be done by the translators themselves (I'm happy to explain the process further!) And it's generally best to inform translators/publishers of these incidents privately and let them handle it, rather than drawing public attention. Not everyone reading this post has the same viewpoint as you, and messages like this can instead make more people aware that they can do the same. I know at least a couple of the users who are active on NUF that run aggregator sites!
Would Amazon actually entertain fan translation DMCAs? With Google DMCAs, I always get threats that I will be in trouble for reporting other people for stealing my unlicensed fan translations while they keep paying them ad money
In this specific situation, whether it's a fan translation isn't really relevant. If Party A reports that content being redistributed by Party B has been copied from them, then all Amazon/Google/whoever else should care about is whether that is true. That's as far as it needs to go under the DMCA system. Whether Party A had permission to translate the content in the first place is a separate issue, one which can only be pursued by the original rights holder. But, I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice.