Regarding the recent drama between a translator and her translation group, a question suddenly came into my mind. I don't know about JP and KR novels, but if you are translating CN novels, the illegal fan translation has the potential to become official translation. the most recent example would be WAO. If the original publisher wants the fan translation to become official, who do they need to contact and who do they need to pay? Do they contact the translation group? Or do they contact the translator? Do the so-called fan translation groups really have the right to claim that the works that are done by other people theirs? I guess some greedy "fan translation groups" would probably take a huge chunk of cut if the translations were sold to the original publisher. Or maybe, they don't even give a simple penny to the translator at all, because they have already "paid" them to translate.
The problem...and choice, in the end is made by the publisher. Whether it is good or bad to the fan translation.... well. It's usually contract work, or so I've heard.
i think you answered your own question if they have such dry relationship where the site owner is paying for the translated chapter as their agreement, the TL would belong to the site since they paid for it and the tl shall not receive a cent of it. there is multiples examples spoke in that very thread you are talking about like when they pay 0,5 for 1k view, 0,6 for 1k view, etc. in this case their deal was based on the site buying the translation and paying that amount for total view, of course i have not checked their actual contract so i don't know the interpersonal changes to deal with the situation above but if it is a DRY contract like that, for me the translation would ALWAYS belong to the website, because they already paid for it and the amount paid was already determined. So in my personal opinion will always depend of how their relationship is: so it depends on their actual contract, but we know that most of the time there is no contract in most groups in this hobby world! so for me the most legally binding way to split the money would be in their original mouth to mouth contract, if again they are not in a "buy to TL method mentioned above!!" So if they already have a deal where the translator gets for example 70% and the site 20% editor 10% of the revenue from patreon kofi etc , if it is becoming oficial and they want to pay it: the translator would get 70 and the site 20 and the editor 10 and just because this is their original agreement. of course once we put scumbag in the mix, things may change but for me would be like that. edit: is like when "the site that shall not be named" came out in this hobby world; in reality my memory is not so clear anymore because it have been years already but i remember some leaked thread about their contracts that they send to the Tl's, where it was clear stated that they PAID for the TL and henceforth the TL would belong to them and them alone. I remember that this created a huge amount of drama on NUF because some people argued that it was against the law of their country where the TL would always belong to the translator or things like that. but they forget that if the TL sign up the contract and he is aware of it , HE must always legally abide by it, it does not matter anything else. of course he can also question in court in their own country to void the contract or some clausule in it later on, but until the judge judge the case he must still abide by it and would forever be in "the site that shall not be named" ownership. So if the "site that shall not be named" ever sell it later on for a huge money, the TL should not get anything of it. (again pardon me if it was not exactly like this that everything played out because i'm not a elephant that can remember everything that happened years ago as clear as today. and if it was not like this, just think that i'm writing about a fictional episode that did not existed in our reality because of weed, so don't need to fuss about it)