Wolfick Okay, so first thing first, don't be scared by the format of my response. I usually qutoe bit by bit of the person's I'm replying to post when I'm bashing them, but here it's not the case. It will just be easier for me to keep my message cohesive by doing so.
Sate sate sate....
First part we agree on so there is completely no point to bring it up. But the problem (that I unknowingly caused) starts right after:
Wolfick by IP I’m going to assume you mean initial product or something.
IP stands for intellectual property. Its basically your copyright that you earn the moment you create something (that is, as long as you can prove you were the one to create it etc, this is not the main topic here)
Wolfick many translators actually paid for the material, this was their way of showing support to the authors.
I do believe that this difference in our understanding of what that unfortunate IP was. So to make it a bit more clear, let me bring up the stuff that I learned from Brandon Sanderson's lectures on writing. This particular lesson wasn't about writing in particular, but agents, contracts and the technical stuff of traditional publishing. And to make sure there is no misunderstanding here, I'm referring to standard publishing model here because its not the point of the discussion at all and its an already established formality that has generally the same rules wherever you go, with only prices and percentages changing.
Once you write a novel, your agent will try to auction it out to the publishers. But if you have a good agent, then instead of selling the packet of "Copyrigbht to XXX novel" he will find a domestic publisher to take the domestic market, while either taking a huge premium for any additional feature outside of the right to publish and sell the novel in the original language. That includes rights to serialisation (in TV), comics, foreign markets etc. While I'm not sure whether the right to translate and distribute the translated version of the work works as a general packet or license for each applied language, but it doesn't matter here, as it shows an important point.
Within your copyright, you can be said to have several ways of selling it. From the domestic market (license to publish and sell for set price paid upfront and set amount of royalties from each sale), through the ecranisation fee (once again, flat fee and percents) all the way to translation for a given language (flat + % again) and to any other way of possibly monetising the work like merch, ads, paid interviews and all.
That means, your copyright (intellectual property over a work) is a product that you can sell. You do not obtain the license to translate something by buying a piece of the work in your local language. There is an entire license required to do that. That's why, translating without permission is allowed only as long as you are the only one ever reading the translation. From all the possible forms of monetizing such illegal translation to the point of sharing it for free, without any adds or donations, its still a copyright infringement. Just like nowadays authors on webnovel are biting their lips to the blood whenever a pirate comes and just steals their entire novel to earn some pennies on their site from ads, that's basically how the business of translation worked in the past, outside of the fact that the translators actually had to put an effort.
So no, buying a physical copy of the novel in its original language to translate it doesn't change the fact that you are infringing on copyright of the novel's author. And going with the legal definition, intentional infringement of the DMCA leading to any profit is equal to stealing. That's just how law works.
Wolfick As for the rest, don’t try claim damages on a product you never put in the marketplace.
I'm a translator of a XXX novel and I'm a racist. MY racist comments can be found everywhere on the internet as I'm quite active. Then someone comes, sees the novel, sees my comments and sees my name on the cover. What will they assume with all that information? Some will be smart and notice its just a translator acting like an idiot. But what about all those people (and voting in any country proves that majority is usually stupid in my honest opinion) who won't bother to do the background check? They might just assume that racist approach of the translator is approved by the author, meaning he is a racist as well.
The example above means to showcase that even without a tangible, math-able loss suffered by the holder of a copyright, one can still be damaged by someone infringing on copyright. Also, a translator illegally translating a popular novel can get both money from doing so and popularity. Both of those are considered to be forms of benefit, and since one has no license to operate on it, it still considered a damage. There is a reason why copyright infringement is taken as the asset damage as soon as its public.
So no, on this point here, you are wrong.
Wolfick It was not their material to translate for others, but they did not sell the material itself.
It doesn't matter. Let's say there is someone bilingual who wanted to read the novel, wanted to buy it in his original language, but found its English translation. Simple example why your way of thinking won't legally work. As soon as an activity opens a way for random people to obtain something otherwise paylocked for free, its already a copyright infringement. Once again, in order to translate stuff, you need a license for that.
Another example that's less personal to the case, let's say an author was super unpopular, but suddenly hit a niche. In just two months, his obscure novel grew for some reason from trash to godlike product in terms of popularity. And now, the author wants to sell the rights to translate it to get more money from his hard work... But there is already a perfectly made translation made by his fans. And as with everything on the internet, once something is saved there once, it never disappears, making the license to translate the novel almost worthless.
Wolfick Product and service are two different things, this is internationally recognised.
All parts and forms of copyright should be considered a product then, geniuienly not sure what that point was supposed to bring, but I assume it seems from the unfortunate misunderstanding of what IP was, partially my bad here.
Wolfick Second, it is these free translators which built up the entire community of Chinese webnovel readers and marketplace for the product, which then allowed Qidian, alt Yuewen, to use as a foundation for an international debut. Without it, QI still would not exist, and there would be no international royalties
This part here, I will explain in a pretty roundabout way. Because from what I can see, the situation of eastern translated novels is insanely similar to the situation of the anime/anime fansubs back before it exploded in popularity in the english-speaking part of the world.
Back in the past, fansubs were the only way to watch anime and understand what was going on without learning the japenesse in the first place. Then a huge community grew around the topic, just like with the novels. With time, more and more groups started to translate, more and more animes started to become popular in the western market, more and more people started to watch anime... All the way to the point where it became a huge market. And that meant, said market was ripe for commercialisation, something that happened or will happen to literally every part of our life.
Do I deny the fact that fan translators started the trend? By any means, no. Do I deny their contribution to the community? Once again, never in hell. Do I deny that they created the market for webnovel to claim for their own? Not at all. But ultimately, those fan subs/fan translations could only exist in the niche before it grew to the point where it could be properly monetised before once they attracted the attention of the actual copyright holder, its over. Because no matter what benefits it brought to the owner, they still infringed on the copyright. They still caused internationally recognised loss (the only way to use someone's work without infringing on the copyright is the so-called "fair use". Just look at several YT dramas where companies can sue people for using 2s too much of a given clip within their blog/vlog/vid. In other words, fair use means that you are allowed to display copyrighted stuff as long as it doesn't make it any easier for someone to experience the product itself in any way or form that could be called wholesome. (My personal rambling here, don't take it for the law speech)
Wolfick So don’t preach to me that free translators are thieves and evil.
I do not do such thing. What I'm claiming in general, is that the time when they could operate, when the model they were operating on, are now gone. With the official player that holds the IP to the stuff they were translating now appearing on the market, they have no more right to exist. The former model of their earning (making them paid translators, just not in the way it currently works) was based on copyright infringement, allowing them to bypass a lot of normal costs (author's fee, company fee, middle-man fee, all the stuff I mentioned in the previous post).
I do not say that they are devil if they used to be a part of the translators that made the trend. It was grey-area of the market before WN appeared. They gave everyone the chance to enjoy the eastern writings. For that, I'm grateful to them. But as it is now, the time of this kind of translation is fully and completely over, making them thieves and evils if they attempt to stick to the times that are now gone. (unless they go through the official route to get the Author's permission to translate stuff, be it for free, for money or just for popularity sake, then they are free to go with my blessing)
Now, two more points I want to bring up that does not directly relate to your last answer, but do to the topic.
1st the simple thing. Speaking from personal experience of someone whose novel is illegally translated to Russian... I fucking hate it. Someone takes the fruits of my work, publicised it under his own name (as the translator), all the while I'm not even able to see how much his translation butchers the original material. In other words, just like I would love to torture to death every single thief who dares to pirate my novels, I do consider that illegal translator as the part of the pirating community as well. For me as an author, its no different. It pissess me off.
2nd, the more complicated stuff, but something that I"m quite sure a lot of people miss in the discussions like that. But its not like I blame them for it. It's humanity's innate flaw to take good things for granted while bitching about the stuff we don't like. But let me start with personal example.
For me, the journey with translated novels (and later on with writing) all started with a single novel. Release that Witch. It made me crazy over it. I binged all 200 something translated chapters in one sitting, before learning the pains of waiting for a new releases. At that time, it was translated by Volare translations (as far as I can remember). While I might be wrong here, I think they were an official translation group that actually bought the license to translate stuff, but as I said, I might be wrong here.
They used to release 1 chapter every 2/3 days. Sometimes, there were delays. But as some point, they just stopped. Dissapointed and desperate to read the continuation, I followed every thread and link possible, looking for someone who would pick that up. Then the first fan translator did so, translating like 20-30 chapters before dissapearing. Then someone else picked it up, releasing like 1 chapter per 3-4 days. And then webnovel came knocking, stirring up everyone to another hateful reaction of how they monopolise the market, steal the works from their (illegal) translators, paywall stuff... In general, it was my first experience of the public reaction to the fac that something was about to get legally monetised.
At first, I didn't really realise this, but by the time WN official translation caught up to the fantranslations, I was already used to it. Used to something that was rarely if ever seen before.
STABLE, DAILY FUCKING RELEASES.
Yes, we all take it for granted now, given how its a baseline for any translated/OG novel out here. But when you think about it, how many fan translators did update on a regular, daily basis? How many of them keep their efforts consistent through years and years required to finish a single project?
And now, that's why the cost of the webnovels is slightly steep (once you take all the freebies and promotions in the account). BEcause in order to provide daily releases, translators (or of authors for the matter) needs to sit up every day and work on the novel. For official translations, that means several people doing their work within a single chapter, from the main translator, through the proofreader, editor, spellchecker, second editor, second translator... From my understanding, they form groups not because of some tribal customs, but because its just how one needs to organise the work to make its result a proper product. But all of those people are not doing it for fun. They are doing that for living.
And here we reach the conclusion of this point of mine. Daily releases is something that doesn't exist anywhere else (outside of OG sites, since Webnovel forced this format on the entire market while saying with a smug smile "don't want to release daily? Then see your readers flock to my novels where we can provide them with entertainment on a daily basis!") It's a standard maybe not created, but definitely popularised by WN. Its something that people take for granted, without even a shred of knowledge how insane amounts of hard work, efforts, tears, coffee and time it actually takes for a single daily chapter to be released.
In the end, I only have small request - if you are going to respond, ignore the fact that there are many grammar mistakes here. I already wasted a lot of my time to write this response instead of writing another chapter for my novels, so I just can't be bothered to go through the entire list that Grammarly shows me. For that, I apologise in advance.