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

Calling publishers evil is naive and fundamentally stupid.
Book publishing is not a very lucrative business unlike things oil. Publishers are trying to spread culture and foster the next generation of authors who will impact a generation.
You think you would have heard of any of your cherished authors without publishers?
You think Syosetu.com would be popular without support from publishers?
You think you would have ever heard of One Piece or Dragon Ball if not for all the publishers who give out awards and prizes to incentivize aspiring authors?

I am done. Find out about J -novel club yourself.
Maybe @Wu Jizun can take over.
Only idiots believe authors can bypass publishers and still get the same reach.
I am not interested in discussing with people with heads buried in the sand or rather heads too far up their ass to see what's right in front of them.
I have wasted too much time here.

 

@Wujigege If I was supposed to answer the OP, then my answer is, "I don't know."

If I was supposed to take over on your current topic, Imma super hadouken you, and then bounce with qinggong, lol. Too much experience here to know I'd be better off spending my daily word count on an actual chapter. Shouldn't even need to state the obvious - it should be.

 

Haha I counter with MUTSU ENMEI RYY and ATATATATA with some moon walking

The road to hell is filled with good intentions.. I should have fled 2 messages ago. Oh well, we live and learn

 

Well, in the past, publisher are king over author because they have control over distribution where author could only rely on publisher to get their stories out to the public. But now, with internet, authors can get their stories to the public easier and can even advertise their stories themselves. This means the level of dependency on publishers have decrease over the years which means author should have more saying power now.

So in summary from what I derive from your posts, authors are against fan translations because publisher ask them to. Publisher are against fan translations because they think it will be a negative effect to them. But as for what's the negative impact, nothing is said....

 

But you can think of some negative impact yourself don't you?
It feels like you still don't understand the exact role of publishers.

 

Putting translation and piracy on the same level is just wrong on many points. First of all, piracy affects directly the original content while translation affects negatively only if there's official translation already.
Without fan translation, how would have many manga or light novels be known and build such large fanbase it has now? Before fan translations, only a handful anime and very mainstream manga would get their spotlight by getting official translation but many many others would be left aside. And light novels? Long time there was none or very rare official translations until the fan TL created demand and supply, opening the market and showing the opportunities to the actual companies.
What about chinese and korean webnovels? Without all the translation groups, no market would have been created. If there was very few translations,there would also be very few readers as it gets very little exposure.
Now that it has become popular, companies like Qidian got to know the potential of the western market. Before that, nobody else did. Companies only go to where they are sure to make money. They are not pioneers like us.

Btw, it's weird Wujigege who is into translation field is very negative about translation and seemgly putting both TLing and piracy on the same level. I'd say hypocrite if what i guessed from his texts is correct. Why deny efforts put by translators? No translator thinks the original novel is their own, recognized and approved by the author or not. Translators have simply the pride in their effort and the passion they put onto the novels they translated.
If you have contributed in a group, activity or such, it's very natural you'd say "my" group or "my" achievement, "my" novel, etc. It doesn't mean that they think they own it like they bought it or not.
It's ridiculuous from someone who runs a TLing group. But then it's a given when you already showed a lack of etiquette towards other groups, huh.

 

It's because I can't think of any, that's why I'm asking it here.

I'm on the side of fan translations and is extremely curious why would an author would be unhappy with a fan translating their work to English and the only reason shown here is because publisher are against it. And @Wujigege seems very knowledgeable and seems to be passionately advocating for less fan translations because of the so call 'negative' impact that publisher are afraid of.

 

There are many fan translations that frankly butcher the quality of the original novel (as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions), sometimes changing key parts of the story itself, and the author would not be able to have any say in how their work is presented whatsoever.

Depending on the deal they made when selling the rights to their work, authors may also get a share of the profits made from official licensing. Fan translations are direct competition to the official version. Even if the fan translation is taken down after the title gets licensed, aggregate sites would still have them, or fans themselves would have saved copies and circulate them.

I am sure there are even more reasons.

 

1. Even with official translations, authors have very little power on the translation (since the right is bought by the foreign publishing company) and/or barely know about the quality of the translations (or simply don't care). So fan translation or not, it's not valid for this point.
2. Aggregate sites don't care about fan or official translations. They just take from everywhere. In what are fan translations involved in the issue of aggregators? Aggregators are aggregators, translators are translators. Don't mix the two issues. The only fair point is fan translation are competition to the official version only if there's an official translation. But if the official content is available freely (like webtoons), people usually just go to read on the official website (unless there's fan translation much ahead than the official).
3. Fans sharing copies of the translated work is also another issue. The translators just translate. They are not responsible if there's copies of fan translations circulating around. But then usually, it's copies of the official translations and raws that are circulated. Barely any fan translations circulating unless it was terminated by DMCA or demand from the author/publisher to take down the fan translation. But then if the taken down fan translations is circulating among the fans, that's still not the fault of the translators.

Btw, official translation can also butcher on the original content as it's purely depending on the ability of the translator, although the average level/standard of official translators are higher. Also happens often that the official translation is intentionally cropping and butchering the original text due to formatting issues (like in manga where you have to respect the dialogue box sizes) or due to certain conventions/rules of the publishing house regarding the translation (where even politics can matter, etc)

 

While true, it's still quite disrespectful. It's practically plagiarism to me, just a different form of it.

 

What? Translating? It's not even remotely close to plagiarism LOL The entire definition of plagiarism is the fact that you try to pass of the work as your own, no one who translate a novel is like "Yeah, this novel? I wrote it"

It's also legal in most countries, in the sense that your translations will always be yours, no one is allowed to use them without your permission, even if you didn't have permission to translate to begin with. It only muddies the water when you accept money for it, but even then, no one is going to sue you (unless there's a company with the rights in your country, like Yen press in the USA, but even then I doubt they will)