Okami Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 Letting aside the legal issues I can already see all the drama unfold about which projects are transated and how the money would be spent. So nope, mixing money on FuwaNovel would be like opening Pandora's Box. I don't see why would there be any drama as I said we could make a poll for witch VN to get translated and all the money would be spent on translators. in regards to specific matters of copyright here its more down to national copyright law. true the idea is a Non-Profit product, but as said earlier the idea of gathering money to fund a Modification to a Copyright Product is technically Illegal in most countries even more so in modern day times, where copyright owners of products could take legal action against modifications to their protected products without permission. In regards to torrents, That's also more to do with Country Specific law's, Technically its nothing serious as no files are hosted under the name Fuwanovel so no Real law is broken under a group. as all that's happening is "if you want to try out this Novel here's a link to where to get it" Honestly most people break laws everyday, even more so for copyright, as a lot of people don't know how they work and how stupid most copyright laws actually are.... But that's for another topic Completely, I could rant on for hours about it You seem to know a lot about copyright laws so could you confirm if what Zalor said is correct? no i don't think i misunderstood your plan at all you said the idea was to pay translators and hackers to do fan translations of games that you don't own the licenses to. the people you pay will be making a profit through their work. that is against the law . international copyright law which means if the companies find out and they likely will they can involve interpol, and since you're likely not doing all this in house but rather paying for the services of hackers and translators from multiple countries this constitutes and organized crime on a international scale. interpol will take it seriously and will be able to perform arrests. while wherever you live piracy and copyright infringement may not be a big deal when it gets the international courts and police involved it does become a big deal . Do you seriously believe this? I must say that you are very naive if you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Star Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I You seem to know a lot about copyright laws so could you confirm if what Zalor said is correct? Yes and no, its more of a grey area really, As I said it also has to do with national Copyright laws for specific countries, along with international copyright laws, for this since it was made in japan,it would be the Japanese copyright law: http://www.cric.or.jp/english/clj/cl2.html In depth discussion commencing~ For the most part if its shown to be a Non-profit product there are no serious laws broken, however As I said earlier, without permission from the copyright holder of the specific product (being whatever Visual novel) the lead (organiser?) could be open to legal action if the holder wished. If you received permission than there is no problems at all however. figuring out the copyright holder is also a challenging thing, as its not always the content creator. but for the most part simply contacting the respective studio would be sufficient example being: Michael Jackson had copyright over a lot of the beatles classic music, however due to the time the content was made and when he took publishing rights, The surviving Beatles could regain copyright 5 years after Michael died, untill that 5 year period is up the copyright holders became his estates Copyright law is such a Mess, I mean you could violate it simply by playing music on your phone in a public place. tl;dr Yes they are right, but without complete permission you could be open to legal action taken by copyright holders Copyright is Wishy-washy-silly laws- Stuff Although all that being said its doubtful that anything would happen if you did it, its just people take notice when money is invloved Anyway, as said, this wouldnt happen by Fuwa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krill Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I don't see why would there be any drama as I said we could make a poll for witch VN to get translated and all the money would be spent on translators. You seem to know a lot about copyright laws so could you confirm if what Zalor said is correct? Do you seriously believe this? I must say that you are very naive if you do. " Organized crime Definitions of what constitutes organized crime vary widely from country to country. Organized networks are typically involved in many different types of criminal activity spanning several countries. These activities may include trafficking in humans, illicit goods, weapons and drugs, armed robbery, counterfeiting and money laundering. Indeed, almost all the crimes areas that we tackle at INTERPOL have an organized aspect." thats from interpol's website , what you're talking about according to interpol constitutes illicit goods, while interpol themselves would not be the ones doing the arrests there persistence and assistance to the authorities in your nation if they are listed here in the 190 nations partnered with them ( http://www.interpol.int/Member-countries/World ) would mean they could persue it as a case of organazed crime of the distribution of illicit goods, how exactly does this make me nieve im just pointing out the glaring fact that what your proposing is against international copyright law and there for fall in to interpols jursidiction as explained on there own homepage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nosebleed Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I don't know why this discussion is still going on when I think it has been cleared out that Fuwanovel crowd funding won't happen ever and Fuwanovel will not take part or support any sort of fan translation involving any kind of monitization. Sure everyone can have different views on it but the point of this thread was to suggest it, and it has already been denied, no reason to transform this into a toxic thread guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Okami Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 " Organized crime Definitions of what constitutes organized crime vary widely from country to country. Organized networks are typically involved in many different types of criminal activity spanning several countries. These activities may include trafficking in humans, illicit goods, weapons and drugs, armed robbery, counterfeiting and money laundering. Indeed, almost all the crimes areas that we tackle at INTERPOL have an organized aspect." thats from interpol's website , what you're talking about according to interpol constitutes illicit goods, while interpol themselves would not be the ones doing the arrests there persistence and assistance to the authorities in your nation if they are listed here in the 190 nations partnered with them ( http://www.interpol.int/Member-countries/World ) would mean they could persue it as a case of organazed crime of the distribution of illicit goods, how exactly does this make me nieve im just pointing out the glaring fact that what your proposing is against international copyright law and there for fall in to interpols jursidiction as explained on there own homepage. I didn't mean to offend you sorry if I did but I just have a problem with believing that you seriously think that Intrpolo would bother about the small thing as this. Interpol is a pretty serious organization that is working on stoping international organized crime so I found thinking that they would bother about a few hundreds of dollars made by internet piracy very funny and naive. I don't know why this discussion is still going on when I think it has been cleared out that Fuwanovel crowd funding won't happen ever and Fuwanovel will not take part or support any sort of fan translation involving any kind of monitization. Sure everyone can have different views on it but the point of this thread was to suggest it, and it has already been denied, no reason to transform this into a toxic thread guys. Because Fuwa Admins didn't have a word in this yet and I want their opinion too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Because Fuwa Admins didn't have a word in this yet and I want their opinion too. Well only one with rank Admin is Tay, but the whole website is community effort so you need to trust us mods too. And I already mentioned the goal of fuwanovel is to make stuff FREE for everyone, which means that if you want free stuff you also do stuff for free to produce it. If we turned into a "VN publisher" who hires professional translators, it completely undermines the foundation of fuwanovel. Not to mention that passionate fan translators make much better job than people who have no idea what they are translating, however professional they might be, they will not catch the exact meaning we VN readers know and like. Also not to mention that hiring professional translators is nigh on impossible. Take normal moege VN - 50,000 lines of lets say average 10 English words per such line, translators from JP to EN on the sites I visit are paid for target word, so that is lets say 500,000 words. Rate for a professional translator used for Video Game industry is 0.13$ per target word, that is 65,000$ for a normal VN - there is no way you can get that kind of money EVER, most of the VNs don't even make that much profit in Japan. Check lot of the VN projects that are popular by different means, for example the SC2 OEL VN - it got really popularized by SC2 community and teamliquid and such, and they got 8,000$ and just barely passed their goal. So EVEN IF you figure out how to make it legal (host in different country, money accounts transferring through some Russian websites, overcome the problems of not paying the translators in paypal because paypal would ban you for breaking the law), even if you can somehow legally do it, you can NEVER get the money required to pay the translators. That's why most of the projects are FAN projects with maybe a donation button to get them a pizza while working on it, and also the reason companies like MG actually often times just buy the fan translations for much less than its actually worth. Or they pay their translators much less, and it can be then noticeable on the quality. So again, this idea is cool sounding at first and it would be nice if it could work in this world, but it is literally IMPOSSIBLE. krill 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Okami Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 I didn't know that you become a mod Steve sorry. Anyway, I think that translators can be hired for much less money on freelancer sites they don't have to be professional in title as long as their work is of high level. And I think it is still in fuwanovels goal as we would share things for free, but I guess it doesn't really matter if nobody is up to the idea. PS: Don't forget Aueru she is Admin too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I didn't know that you become a mod Steve sorry. Anyway, I think that translators can be hired for much less money on freelancer sites they don't have to be professional in title as long as their work is of high level. And I think it is still in fuwanovels goal as we would share things for free, but I guess it doesn't really matter if nobody is up to the idea. PS: Don't forget Aueru she is Admin too. Yes, those freelancer sites have 0.13$ per target word, professional translators with universities for both languages are much more expensive, you might get about half the rate for beginner freelancers at max, it is still over 30,000$ for a single VN - impossible. And sadly Aaeru is not active anymore, she will not be able to respond to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalor Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Yes they are right, but without complete permission you could be open to legal action taken by copyright holders Copyright is Wishy-washy-silly laws- Stuff Although all that being said its doubtful that anything would happen if you did it, its just people take notice when money is invloved Anyway, as said, this wouldnt happen by Fuwa. Yes, if this were to happen law suits could possibly result. My point however, was that we have a legal case, and just because they could sue, doesn't mean they would win. I mean you guys seem frightened to death of a law suit, (with good reason), but in this scenario we would have a valid legal point to make. The reason we even have defendants is because accuses are not always correct. I don't know why this discussion is still going on when I think it has been cleared out that Fuwanovel crowd funding won't happen ever and Fuwanovel will not take part or support any sort of fan translation involving any kind of monitization. Sure everyone can have different views on it but the point of this thread was to suggest it, and it has already been denied, no reason to transform this into a toxic thread guys. Although I think it's a great idea, I don't think this would actually happen under Fuwa either. However, I find debates, no less legal debates when I can participate in them, to be very fun. Perhaps that's just me... Last point. I think someone mentioned this before. But even if Fuwa doesn't support this, if we can find enough individuals who support this, we could make our own non-profit that is not necessarily affiliated with Fuwa. Of course even then it is unlikely that we would be able to generate enough money, but who knows. I do think this is a neat idea and definitely one that should be seriously considered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Star Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Yes, if this were to happen law suits could possibly result. My point however, was that we have a legal case, and just because they could sue, doesn't mean they would win. I mean you guys seem frightened to death of a law suit, (with good reason), but in this scenario we would have a valid legal point to make. The reason we even have defendants is because accuses are not always correct. Yes but that requires costly time in an international Court to make a case And anyway As i said its doubtful that any legal ramifications would happen if it was completely Non-profit, I was just showing how if you did that you would be publicly vulnerable to a law suit or at minimum a Cease and desist order on the project if the holders or creator's wished it so. all depends on the company really I find debates, no less legal debates when I can participate in them, to be very fun. I'm sort of the same, although I detest Copyright laws with a passion I hate it, but I spent a heap of time learning it so avoid any issues for future work....you have no idea how annoying it is to do reports to royalty agency's and Copyright claim's for music.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaguya Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Yes, if this were to happen law suits could possibly result. My point however, was that we have a legal case, and just because they could sue, doesn't mean they would win. I mean you guys seem frightened to death of a law suit, (with good reason), but in this scenario we would have a valid legal point to make. The reason we even have defendants is because accuses are not always correct. Even if we could win, just hiring a decent lawyer takes a significant amount of money, especially since most people here are students. And I don't think anyone here would be able to risk doing it- it could get your life screwed if you lost. That's waaaaaay too much risk. Well, the idea per se is not bad, it's just not what fuwa is all about anyway- We aren't supposed to be affiliated with tls, in the first place. If someone just does it by themselves it's fine, but it cannot be a fuwa-filliated project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 We aren't supposed to be affiliated with tls, in the first place. Well actually fuwa is a TL base that is different from the other websites like tlwiki and as such TL projects happen here, like the EH project is a Fuwa project, since I use this forum and the blog to promote and recruit people. It is one of the goals - to celebrate fan translation and contribute to it as well by gathering kind and hard working people here and as you can see in the Fan TL registration topic, it is very successful. So you could say fuwa doesnt do TLs but is a community of groups that do translations, just like tlwiki and similar websites. But either way, it is FAN translation which means it is free, and even when I asked the people on the EH team if they want me to setup donations for cookies, they said they do it from love and passion and would not want to receive money for it - and that's the right attitude we want here. Star 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaguya Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Well actually fuwa is a TL base that is different from the other websites like tlwiki and as such TL projects happen here, like the EH project is a Fuwa project, since I use this forum and the blog to promote and recruit people. It is one of the goals - to celebrate fan translation and contribute to it as well by gathering kind and hard working people here and as you can see in the Fan TL registration topic, it is very successful. So you could say fuwa doesnt do TLs but is a community of groups that do translations, just like tlwiki and similar websites. But either way, it is FAN translation which means it is free, and even when I asked the people on the EH team if they want me to setup donations for cookies, they said they do it from love and passion and would not want to receive money for it - and that's the right attitude we want here. Well, we do allow projects here, but they aren't affiliated with fuwa per se- you may use it to recruit people, post updates and such, but it isn't an "official" fuwanovel project, right? Even if fuwanovel members are translating something and using a thread here as a base of sorts, it's not "a project made by fuwanovel" just "a project made by some members of fuwanovel out of their own will", thus not linked to the "official" site activities, such as the main page. At least that's what I've always been told. So even if fuwanovel as a whole promotes fan translations, we aren't linked to any specific tl group, even if they may use our site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beato Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 A translator tried to do this actually some time ago. Aroduc did a kickstarter to gather money to fan translate Little Witch Romanesque. Unsurprisingly the kickstarter was suspended. Though luckily Jast licensed the game so we're getting it anyway since they can pay him. (I know a lot of people here hate when Jast license fan translations but in this case we might not have gotten it otherwise so it was definitely a good thing) The only way kickstarting something like this would work is if you've already gotten the license or if you've been promised it if you pay x amount of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Okami Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 A translator tried to do this actually some time ago. Aroduc did a kickstarter to gather money to fan translate Little Witch Romanesque. Unsurprisingly the kickstarter was suspended. Though luckily Jast licensed the game so we're getting it anyway since they can pay him. (I know a lot of people here hate when Jast license fan translations but in this case we might not have gotten it otherwise so it was definitely a good thing) The only way kickstarting something like this would work is if you've already gotten the license or if you've been promised it if you pay x amount of money. Kickstarter isn't the only way to start Crowd Funding we could as well do it right here on Fuwa if people here weren't against it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beato Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 No way we would allow anything like this on fuwa sorry it's far too dangerous. It has nothing to do with our personal stance on crowdfunding fantranslations (I'm against it but there's probably some people in the staff who wouldn't mind) Getting involved with money would risk the site's entire existence which is not something I, and I assume the rest of the staff, is willing to do. Feel free to do something like this off site, we'll probably mention it on the blog. Risking fuwa for something like this is out of the question. krill, Kaguya and orochinagi 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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