Question Has there been anyone that got sued for not asking for the rights to translating the novel ?

There are a lot of translators who doesn’t ask for the rights to translation so I was just curious to see if there are people who actually got sued by the original author.

 

yes but not really, mostly (from what i heard and read) they give warnings 1st and if the translator doesnt comply then they get sued

 

Well most translators stop after getting warned by the author.

 

Do authors usually start with warning?

 

If they're not in the same country as the author the most they probably CAN do is DMCA the translators website.

And if you're a terrified translator... use a VPN.

 

kinda hard to sue someone through the internet..... they do get dmca'd tho desu

 

Just make life easier for yourself and drop the novel.
What you are doing is just poor taste at this point.
The novel is not yours.
The way translators keep using words like " my novel" is pretty pathetic.

 

I've heard of scanlation groups within Japan itself getting arrested, but that's about it

 

*currently laughing at something*

 

Well, when I was translating R-18 novels the author found out and put a message in her activity report in syosetu, to take down her novels which got translated without permission, and how me doing things like that can make the author stop writing.

So I quickly contacted her twitter and apologized and took down her novels from my site. She also apologized and all ended well. I didn't got sued.

I got kinda afraid to pick up another novel after that though. Since I got lucky with my current one that the author doesn't mind me translating it.

Moral of the story: you should ask for permission, and if you were asked to take the novel down, you should just do it.

 

Also I have seen them try to sue groups in south america, the groups just laugh at them and continue translating, (law is very lax on some places in south america). so yeah sometimes it happens but in very few places it is an effective tactic.

 

The most I seen are DMCA
But if you are Actually in Japan, or in the Original Novel Country, then getting sue probably isn't a joke. I think it's most probably because the translators are foreigners to sue outside of the country isn't an easy matter.

 

For JP, KR and CN novels being translated into English? No, I'm pretty sure it has never happened ever. Even for cases where they continue after being warned. If you don't live in any of those countries, and no one in your country holds the rights to the novel you're translating, just take "I'll sue you" as a joke.

@aceclover95 no reason to get scared, what is the author gonna do, take a flight over to your country and file something against you? LOL 99% of the people writing on syosetu don't have the spare cash to deal with legal battles outside of their own countries, especially in cases where they won't even see any money from it. (IE, they can't sue you for damages, and even if they could it wouldn't cover all the shit they had to pay)

 

I think u have got an answer to ur question by now so.... Answer one of mine,

R u the one thinking about suing or the one about to get sued(or have been warned about it)?

 

Of course you are right. But such translators wont be able to hide behind promoting author's work excuse.
They will be hypocrites. Then again, they were hypocrites in the first place.
Profiting of someone's hardwork is not promotion.
I have said it before:
Sharing a 2 minute clip from a 2 hour movie is a promotion
Sharing the entire 2 hours is not a promotion anymore

 

I am betting my chances on the second one btw!

 

Ofc it's an excuse, it's no different than those idiots who will pay you for work with "experience" and "exposure" instead of, you know, something you can use to pay bills. It's all bullshit.


BUT at the same time, you can't completely say that pirating (which is what it is) doesn't ALSO promote w/e they're pirating. Like, do you believe for a second that a niche market like anime, manga and LN's would have ever been introduced into the west if not for pirates? Hell no, it's only in the last few years where watching anime and reading manga has become a bit more convenient for the average person thanks to shit like netflix, hulu etc, before CR was big, everyone was a pirate or watching shows on toonami, that's it.

 

This sucks.

 

You are overestimating promotion via piracy.
Word of mouth is just as powerful. Box office success of movies is a good proof of that.
Why would anyone purchase got if they can get it for free via pirating?
It is one thing for your friend to tell you about something but a whole different ball game to give you a duplicate copy that you do not have to return.
Personally, I do not really care about piracy anymore, people will always cheat if they can. But let us not delude ourselves and think that it has any special advantages. Even when musicians offer songs for free on their websites, people still go on pirate websites to download it because it has become the new normal and people have gotten used to it. That is why it is staunchily defended with excuses like it promotes. You translate yourself. You translations are available to read for free but people still go to kissnovels or fake wuxiaworld websites to read your translations. There is no way it is a positive.
But as I said, I don't really give a crap about piracy. Humans always shoot themselves in the foot. Even though lung cancer has been linked to smoking, people still smoke.
My biggest issue is services like Hulu, Amazon Video and Crunchyroll.
There is no way $5 can cover production costs for 100s of companies.
That is why famous anime Studios like Madhouse are essentially dead. A caricature of their former selves
I do not understand humans, if studios do not make a living wage how exactly will they be able to keep producing epic anime?
That is why all we get is shit like Black Clover and the same ecchi protagonist recycled every anime season.
I doubt we can get anything like Darker Than Black or even Evangelion anymore.
A YouTuber pointed out how 20 star animators were used in producing One Punch Man
I laughed my ass off. That is red alert. Because the studio could not afford to pay bills and have their own in house staff
the director had to call in favors from his friends.
It is pathetic

 

Uhh, word of mouth in the early days of anime, manga and LNs was from people who pirated, at least the majority of the time.... I get what you're saying, but I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about pre/early internet era....It's a completely different ball game now.

Well there's a lot more to the anime industry failing than the misconception you noted above. I'll just address the misconception in case anyone else questions how their money is divvied up.

Almost always, companies like netflix etc will simply pay a flat licensing fee to air the shows concurrently online, and maaaybe if the anime studio is lucky, they'll also get a super small profit share.... So your 15 dollars? Yeah, that's almost always going to netflix to recoup the initial loss they made by purchasing the license, everything after they pay that off? Pure profit for them baby. And the anime studio? Yeah, well.....Better hope they sell enough Blurays and anigoods or they'll go bankrupt like a few anime studios do every year.

Like I always tell people. If you want to support an anime you love, or a studio you love, directly buy their goods, merchandise, blurays etc. If I really love a show I will buy anything I can get my hand on (directly from amazon.jp, and make sure it's from the official company that holds the rights, not some fuckwit chinese guy who steals images from the internet and puts them on cheap wallscrolls)