Question Getting permission from the author to translate

I've been translating for a little while now, and I've always been meaning to (albeit belatedly) ask the authors of the LNs I translate for their permission to translate their works. I've never made a cent off of ad revenue/asked for donations/received any kind of monetary compensation for my translation, so I'm not trying to do this from a legal standpoint --just a purely personal one, as I'd feel more comfortable having their permission than not.

However, though I found the authors' personal blogs, I couldn't find their contact information anywhere. There were no means to contact the author directly through their blogs and as of yet I haven't been able to find their twitter accounts or any other social media accounts they might use, if they have one. Theoretically, I could write in a public comment on one of their blog posts and provide them with my contact information that way, but I'd greatly prefer to not make it so public.

Is there any other way that I could try to contact the authors that anyone else can think of?
Thanks in advance :]

 

If it's a well known author you should be able to find some contact information somewhere, but if it's only a small time author your best bet is just commenting on their blog, i don't see many other alternatives. If you want to make it more private you could try asking for their email adress or something, and then discuss details there

 

If they are in syosetsu. You can msg them on their profile.

 

If you're translating LNs and not WNs, the author probably doesn't have the ability to give you permission. In most cases, the author grants the LN publisher an exclusive license for their work, which means you'd need to get approval from the publisher, not the author, to translate. Good luck getting the publisher to agree to letting you translate any LN without paying a licensing fee to do so.

 

The translator can always give greenlight even if not legal approval.

As in, saying they don't mind having the work translated, or that they are happy you are translating it even. They don't need to have the legal rights to allow you to translate to give you their blessings on the translation.

 

That's true. I guess it depends on your aim. If you want to secure your translations against being removed by the publisher, you'd need publisher approval. If your goal is just to have the author's blessing, but you aren't doing it to prevent the translation from being removed or anything, there's nothing wrong with seeking the author's approval. It's just that in most cases, the author isn't legally able to give you their blessing, and if they do, it won't protect you from having your work removed if the publisher requests it.

 

Well, no law can stop the author from giving their unofficial blessing that doesn't amount to anything before the law~

And well, OP is saying that they want it for their own personal sake, not for the legal thing, so I'm pretty sure all they want is the author's blessing, not the actual license to translate, so it's alright, even if it won't stop any publisher from sending a DMCA, at least it's not a translation done behind the author's back anymore.

 

don't even ask. It's just unnecessary trouble.
if you're hogging a neighbor's wifi, you don't knock on their door to ask permission
a great majority of online authors are fine with translation. It's mostly fanfics and shit that they're worried about, since those can potentially become rival competitors as they are in the same language. even if the translated version's community is larger than the original novel's, it doesn't affect the original's reader base since they're so segregated from the foreign novel translation community.

 

Yeah, I just wanted the author's unofficial blessings, so that they're aware that I'm doing this. I know that it won't save me from a DMCA or anything, and I don't expect it to. Sorry if that was unclear.

Hmm, I guess that's just about the only thing I could do at this point. Thank you for the advice.

Lol, that's one way of looking at it? I get your point, and I am optimistic about receiving the authors' blessings if I ever ask because of some of the points you've listed, but a part of this is really for my own peace of mind as well. Thanks, though.

 

Sure, as long as it's not written or recorded anywhere Contracted authors cannot grant permission, or acknowledge a derivative work based on the IP by a third-party behind the publisher's back, and most of them will be in breach of their contract by doing so. Potentially being in breach of the contract is very much not worth whatever you gain by giving tacit, recorded approval to a translation.

@Sephi-chama I understand why you're doing this and support this decision. It is self-inflicted unnecessary trouble, but it's also the proper thing to do. Still, given that you work on Light Novels, when you contact the author, speak in hypothetical first ( "What would his reaction be if someone wanted to translate one of his novels to English on a strictly non-commercial basis", "Would he be happy/allowed to give permission to such effort?" ). The what-if's will allow the author to give you a moral blessing without being forced to outright declare it in writing which he might be forbidden to do. He'll also have the chance to warn you off from pursuing this topic further if it's more convienient for him to be officially unaware and not know anything about the subject. In short, be delicate and vague at first, give the guy a room to manoeuvre.

 

@HnM_Pete Thank you for your great advice. I'll be sure to keep it in mind if I ever figure out how to contact them.

 

... Look, people that bother with asking author's for permission are the same people that respect DMCA takedowns, nothing would ever come of it, you're making a hurricane in a glass of water.

 

That's a rather filthy way to perceive the whole situation of published works. it's better to just not steal it in the first place regardless of how many people it doesn't hurt. But it's not like I can expect integrity from random translators and readers.

 

Well... When I'm thinking about picking up another series/recommending a series to a translator, I never go to the big sites like 17k and especially QI. It's the small, tiny raw sites that don't and aren't able to give two sh*ts about copyright in such a large gray area like translation. I don't recommend translating a novel from an author who writes novels for a living without a license at all.

 

most web novel authors are just high school/college students or random people writing in their own spare time. And I've contacted these people before, they couldn't care less.