Hatake_Shirou Hello
- does wn pay the original authors of the stories which are being translated and is there proof of that?
Webnovel has a contractual obligation to pay the original authors of the translated stories a certain percentage of the share. I, unfortunately, do not have anything I can show you as a lot of these are under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, however, feel free to message the author about it and hopefully they can give you an answer. Authors also tend to ask us as translators to change different names and such, that's usually how we know that these authors do care about the translated stories, otherwise, why would they bother?
-As a result, considering most of these novels are readily available to read online as most of them are only making some money through donations by fans, I worry that these are being translated and then earned of without permission.
These are mainly translated by fan translators and you are correct in that they do not give any part of the translation or the ad revenue for that matter, to the original authors. All novels translated and published on Webnovel are generally speaking sharing a profit with the original authors.
- Which is a major wall that keeps me from applying for a membership on webnovel as I have seen nothing to show me its on the up and up...
If your biggest concern is that the original authors are not getting a profit of the revenue, then as long as you are willing to support their books on Webnovel, then they are definitely receiving a part of this revenue.