So I stumbled on this post by a syosetu author Spoiler: Full post (translated) Title: Yesterday, I wrote a post about 'My work is being translated on a foreign site without permission" but... Just as the title says, its about the incident from the day before. It seems like that my work is not the only victim on that translation site, so I thought that it was no longer just my own problem and contacted the management (T/N: syosetu side), but apparently the user policy does not apply to problems on external sites and they cannot get involved. Also according to information from another user, acting alone is tough. So this might be useless but I wrote 'Please refrain from reposting, translating without permission' in the synopsis. Once it's at this scale it's probably useless unless a publisher acts. In my case, my work is not published so I have no one to discuss with, but for someone whose published work is being translated without permission, it's better to quickly discuss this with your publishing company. So to draw attention to the problem, I will paste the foreign site in question. Here is the link. (I can't post links but author linked NU) You can search for titles at the top right of the display, so it might be better to check if your novels are being translated without permission. In any case... I was depressed because of how much more recognised the translated version was but I feel better now thanks to some encouraging words. Thank you to those who cheered me on and adviced me. (For perople who know how to see syosetu posts and because I can't post links, the original post: userid/578628/blogkey/2687095//) To sum it up, the author found out that his/her work was being translated without permission. The problem is that the author seemed to misunderstand that NU is a translation site and was asking other authors with published works to see if their works are listed on NU and inform their publishers and get them to act. I've messaged the author and cleared up the misunderstanding about NU (I think) and redirected him/her to the site where the translated work is hosted. I'm not interested in getting into the permission stuff. But I thought it would be better to have some disclaimer directed towards authors (maybe publishers too?) somewhere prominent on the main site. Like maybe under the user tools? Just a short link in their language to catch their attention like 日本作者へ？ Spoiler: Then leading to something like this? 免責事項 このサイトはあくまでまとめサイトであって翻訳サイトではありません。翻訳された作品はこちらに投稿されておりません。作品についての連絡事項は各翻訳サイトにお願いします。 English: Disclaimer This site is a collating site, not a translation site. Translated works are not hosted here. If there is anything regarding the translated works, please contact the respective translation sites. I don't know the legal stuff, so you might want to hash out the contents but I think it would be better to have something like this for authors. Might help avoid problematic stuff? I've only seen this one case so I'm not sure, just a suggestion. And sorry, I can only do jap~
Mind giving me a bit more context on that link? I'd like to look at the original post, but I'm not really familiar with the blog side of syosetu. Edit: nevermind, it's here: https://mypage.syosetu.com/mypageblog/view/userid/578628/blogkey/2687674/
Ah, sorry, error on my side, should be userid/578628/blogkey/2687095/. 2687674/ is the update from author today after clearing up misunderstanding. Editted above.
@runsing this is worh considering. Adding a disclaimer in all languages. Just helps NU avoid unnecessary legal roubles hich will take time.
disclaimer of saying "nu doesn't host anything, only linking", you mean? for brainless people who can't even be bothered to click any of the link themselves and be sure of where the link goes? personally, i don't think people like that have enough brain capacity to even read and understand the disclaimer, because it will be harder compared to just clicking the links. in any case, it'll be up to the lizard overlord, i guess. i'll drop this in his mailbox.
I think they're speaking more about non English authors who only really see that this site seems to be hosting their stories, so they want a little disclaimer in a few other languages to help make it easier for those people. I know from experience that foreign sites can be hard to understand, so I feel a bit of sympathy for their case.
While they might very well be jumping to conclusions, the main thing is the language. I don't understand syosetsu, so we can expect the same from them authors as well. And it will do good to the rep of NU among other language speakers. Like, just the rule sof what gets listed here, written in multiple languages, can be a really great resource.
personally, i'm still quite sketical of this. i mean, NU is in english. probably one of, if not the most easiest language to translate from. in this age of smartphone and auto-translate apps, the'ye just being lazy and more interested in dramatizing excuses like "bohoo, its a foreign site, ppl are more interested in reading my works in foreign language, than in original". excuse me, wtf are you smoking author, can you give me some of it? you're blaming foreign readers, who's clearly interested in your works, when clearly your own ppl thinks it is sub-par?
+1 this. I have no doubt that they have the resources to do so at hand, but prefers to scapegoat NU as a whole instead of the individual groups to rally sympathy from other authors and the local readers. I'm not just addressing the author mentioned by OP but some other authors of other nationalities too. This isn't the first time something like this happened after all. The idea for a disclaimer is not a bad one imo. Just look at what happened to wuxiaworld with that pirate site that shares the same name. Gaining bad rep by association. Who's to say it won't happen to NU too. Not saying NU have a pristine rep, but it won't hurt to be cautious.
NU is basically Google/Bing/Yahoo/DuckDuckGo/whatever other search engines are out there for web novels. Why don't they blame them instead? Actually, that exact site has a 2nd domain named novelupdates.... Wait... Perhaps they meant that site? I know they linked here, but they might think it's the same website like with WW.
If you blame the translators, you can't get the sympathy of other authors. "It's not mine, none of my business" mindset. However, by blaming NU they would gain the sympathy of other authors that have their novels listed here. If you get the authors, you get their readers too. That's what I meant being cautious. If you gain a bad rep due to some pirate site that shares a similar name to yours, and it spread among authors, the one dragged down is you. It's better to make it clear now that this website is a directory and not a pirate site that host the translations than having to clear things up later after the authors/publishers already built a bad impression of you.