There is 2 point that you miss. They can stop project as they like if its not profiting. If you want to translate new novel they will pick one for you and you have to pray this shit novel pass the trial vote.
The moment you sign it they own all of your translation. They can just have you sign it, terminate the contract, and boom. They get free 2700 translated chapters.
just spam CCP CORONA VIRUS, TIANANMEN SQUARE 4 june 1989, FREEE TIBET ETC in your translation, put those in each sentence etc or make it as watermark and let them steal those translation.
Yup thats the exact issue i also brought up with them. But he didnt even know they could do that... This is legit a 100% fail proof plan XD
Uh, people might have missed it but they write "work" instead of "translation" the reason is simple: both translations and original are work, and they can screw you of both with one single contract. Neat.
I mean, he isn't exactly wrong about you having no way to sue him, whether stealing your translations would be illegal or not. What're you really going to do if he does? Sue him? Internationally? At tremendous expense to yourself? Over the copyright of an unlicensed translation? Which, while definitely protected by international treaty, gets a lot more shaky on the country level and offers no guarantee of success? Wish you the best of luck in *that* pursuit. And if you did succeed.. what? They have to take it down? Money well spent?.. I guess? No, he's right. If he wants to shamelessly rip off your work, there's not much you can do about it. Sure, it publicly puts Webnovel on the same legal and ethical level as any common aggregator, but why would they care? If you can't actually enforce your rights, then you have no rights.
The one who contacted you is most likely not the one who drafted the contract. they're acting based on what they think which is why they behave in the way shown in your chat logs
I'm guessing they're saying this stuff 'cause they themselves don't want to be forced to deal with this legally, they can, but it's expensive and time-consuming. They sure are going at this in a scummy manner, though. You can sue them, but you'll likely lose. Honestly, you don't have much of a choice. They're acting like shit 'cause they know you can't do much.
We know that but to the point telling me to break the contract before i even signed it...? This guy had a signature in his email stating he is the head of the "Webnovel TL&ED Dept.". But even if he cant change anything he could refer me to his supervisor whatsoever instead he says the legal teams havent responded to him for the last 6 months XD Soo they cannot change anything because this is the same contract other translators signed.
Ah yeah. We have contacted Rosalie before. At first, we just wanted to ask permission to TL one of their abandoned projects and post it in our site but no... she said that we couldn't do it and our group could TL it and post it in Webnovel after signing the contract.We knew that signing their contract was risky thank goodness we didn't. The project had so much potential it is such a loss it's abandoned.
@Westeller actually... there is many ways to sue him over that. They're just not worth it. And Webnovel true problem is that webnovels (the novels onlines) are becoming more and more to the liking of other countries and in an early period so the less website can claim ancestry & legitimacy, the more they can seat their dominion and flood the market with it. While the market is not maturated yet, and while the teams still aren't professional with lawyers and such there's only this moment for them to manage to get all those who are doing translation/originals in their pocket and steal them of works both past and present; It isn't difficult to see why any website that does the same as them is a threat, and why reputation will, in the longer term be an important factors, twice so if the site enable authors to be paid. These contracts will be much more regarded, and therefore getting less and less signed on their side. To net future earnings, they must gain more readership, more legitimacy, and a bigger "already trapped" base. Which is going to be difficult if they really attack in the "open". Wuxiaworld was a sneak surprise attack, they didn't had the time to do much. But Foxteller stands strong, grows its base and is getting popularity as it is developing itself well, which means that such website will pose a greater threat to Webnovel when more professional will looking into these options to publish stories. Basically, it's indeed as you say, but so long as Fox doesn't yield, they also cannot attack too openly. If they stupidly do, then it's going to be a huge financial lash back to them when the market professionalize & literature agents and other who've begin to look the Webnovel way for some of their authors, will come in the picture. Not sure if my english is good enough and clear enough to pass on what I mean. Which project was it?
May you have peace in the golden age or something like that... Bruh you too maybe at fault for TLing Qidian novels. It's an unspoken law for all the TL groups not to touch Qidian novels. I think everyone is aware how underhanded Webnovel is, making people slave for them. I'm honestly not surprised reading the clauses. What else could you expect from an originally Chinese company?
It seems Qidian owns almost all platforms in China tho XD They own more then 20 platforms... 1 of which is Qidian and one which is Webnovel. So I'm afraid its no longer just Qidian these days. The novels we were translating were on Yunqi or something. Which now apparently belongs to Qidian
It's owned by Yuewen/Tencent as well. You can check by looking at the bottom of the webpage. http://yunqi.qq.com/