Rule 3 Addendum - Translations of Others' Works

[Skierus]

I hold great respect for this stance. Good policy! <3

 

[sxeron10]

I read a lot in WebNovel because there's those rare well-written stories that are hidden beneath its massive Chinese translated to English works and dumb power fantasy fics.

So, seeing this rule is quite good in removing dusts from well-hidden gems.

 

[sicksock]

Been a long time coming. Rip to that one guy who would regularly take over half the NSFW frontpage.

 

[The_Lord_Bread]

Been a long time coming. Rip to that one guy who would regularly take over half the NSFW frontpage.

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Justice for Zastra

 

[CaraMyBeloved]

Atleast this does prevent the situation where most stuff just becomes fan translation. I'm looking at you Webnovel.

 

[RagTagSpy]

Aw man, Welp I saw this coming (I didn't even think about it)

 

[joesmith1999]

Anything not republished redundantly ad nauseam is at risk of disappearing. I've certainly been faced with such issues often enough, when trying to find back things I remembered reading or watching in the past.

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"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Spoiler: "Out of pocket."

I am also by trade a programmer, where I also program proprietary malware for a paycheck.

My contribution to society in my legal employment is almost solely detrimental (and for the profits of a few), and so I somewhat try to compensate in my Free/Libre work (I'd still make Free/Libre Software even without the motivation of compensating for the harm done, I like to make software).

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Also, holy shit. I'm so sorry, but I need you to know that that really does not come close to compensating for harm done. Not to re-enact that 'and yet you participate in society, how interesting' meme, but, HAH.
Go, like, volunteer at a soup kitchen in your local community or something, seriously.

Anyways, the publisher always got super anal about that kinda thing, but I never really cared about fan translations. If some kid wants to poorly translate my book into Russian to make some pocket money, have at it, buck-o. If it was a COMPANY doing it, then yeah, fuck off bitch, I'll see you in court! And by "I," I really mean, "the publisher," who will cut me a check after they get through reaming your lawyers.

Obviously that's a little different, because the publisher owned the rights, so they just went after whoever they thought was worth going after. I highly doubt a relatively niche forum like this one would be worth the hassle, but they'd still probably send the letter and hope you roll over. Of course, whether or not they FIND IT is another matter; mostly it was sort of don't-ask-don't-tell. Again, obviously excepting other companies; and again, well, my contract made no mention of reporting such a thing myself, of course. ;)

"American Capitalism," or whatever you wish to call it, is at times strangely LIKE—and at other times, strangely DIS·like—Shadowrun, for example. If you've never interfaced with the other side of it, the (ugh) B2B side, you really don't understand it like you might think you do. As much as [RULE 8-ADJACENT INFORMATION REDATED] was a complete fool and obviously corrupt, corporations really DO behave almost like people: ruthlessly exploiting every available avenue which might benefit themselves, while avoiding fights they might gain nothing from.

Uh, all this to say, I have no strong feelings one way or t'other.

 

[da3monh0st3d]

Spoiler: Replying on social conditions - Spin up your favorite doomer mix

Also, holy shit. I'm so sorry, but I need you to know that that really does not come close to compensating for harm done.

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That depends on what one contributes to and the specific nature of the harms (I can however easily claim to do more positive stuff for society in one month of messing around on projects than I do at work in a year). Most jobs that aren't basic manual labor type (and even for those, it gets complicated) have serious problems here (a lot to do with who owns & profits).

As for soup kitchens, we actually have proper food assistance unlike some other countries (and soup kitchens are rare outside the city centers). There are other ways of contributing prosocially. My local "community" most likely shouldn't exist given the shit they tolerate & do (it has done a great job of ensuring its long-term non-sustainability though so that might fix itself on its own).

There's effectively no way to not have contributed to worse than one can ever hope to offset in the course of one's worklife without basically just fucking off innawoods (which will mostly just lead to a miserable death). So keeping a hard count of the negatives is not really of any use, nor is working oneself to death trying to make up for it (it won't work). That's no argument for trying to actively be worse though. (This is my reply to the meme, essentially. At least without digging into Rule 8 & theory of change.)

I cannot meaningfully reply to the rest or expand on the circumstances without either doxing myself or running afoul of Rule 8. I can say however that solving the problem properly at the root requires a set of skills I did not acquire, do not have and which very few seem to have.

edit: It occurs to me that it might not have been clear that when I said "proprietary malware", I was using malware in the same sense/way as GNU does. Which is to say that basically any software with anti-user "features" is consequently malware. Adware is a classic example and seems to cover the majority of commonly used phone apps.

I'm not making attack toolkits or anything so noteworthy.

Aw man, Welp I saw this coming (I didn't even think about it)

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It was fairly expectable and it's almost surprising there weren't complaints already.

 

[searcher8]

I mean, I can't really say I object to anything here in the rule change. Especially since contrary to what most of the doomers are saying, translated fics are allowed under this change, you just need to actually ask the original author for permission.

Given that anyone doing a translation must by definition know the language that the original story is written in, it's a trivial matter to go and ask the original author if it's alright to do a translation. And anyone somehow incapable of putting in that token level of effort probably doesn't have the work ethic to actually go about properly translating an entire story, so filtering out the people who refuse to do so is no great loss.

 

[Jason Wu]

I do think the topic has some nuance to it. Depending on the language and series, there's a huge chance I would never find the original story since I'm not going to look for it on a whim. A translation would definitely be the easiest way to get my attention.

 

[searcher8]

I do think the topic has some nuance to it. Depending on the language and series, there's a huge chance I would never find the original story since I'm not going to look for it on a whim. A translation would definitely be the easiest way to get my attention.

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Right, which is why the rule allows that, as long as you 1) ask the original author for permission first, and 2) link to the original story, so people can find the original if they enjoy the translation. Neither of these things strike me as being unreasonable requirements in any form.

 

[Aaron Hardin]

The very notion of needing to ask permission to retell a story or alter it is just utterly bizarre.

(As with many nonsensical laws, it was born of monopoly protection.)

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Yes, how dare authors have the ability to make a living by being an author full time, they should have to work regular jobs like fanfic writers.

In all seriousness, intellectual property is property, and while copyright does seem to get abused a bit too much (it is too easy to get things copyrighted that took little to no work to make), it is not a monopoly, as there are other books in similar genres and people can make their own stuff up instead of trying to make money by copying someone else.

 

[da3monh0st3d]

Yes, how dare authors have the ability to make a living by being an author full time, they should have to work regular jobs like fanfic writers.

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I covered all of this in my various posts along this thread and do not feel like rehashing them, please refer to them first.

No I do not have a transcript for the videos at this time.

In all seriousness, intellectual property is property,

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No, the oxymoron is fallacious (one cannot possess nor steal an idea/information, any attempt duplicates infinitely, all that can be stolen is the particular physical representation of it). The conflation term is also harmful (note that this article doesn't go into the problems with patents and copyright, nor the veracity of their claims/purposes).

it is not a monopoly, as there are other books in similar genres and people can make their own stuff up instead of trying to make money by copying someone else.

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It's literally the right to make (and/or sell) copies, it's a monopoly right with subleasing/licensing. It's in the name.

people can make their own stuff up instead of trying to make money by copying someone else.

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And then we get to the trolling potential, which gets exploited a lot albeit within practical limitations. There is no such thing as a fully original work (in the sense of having no relation or derivation however tenuous to anything else) that is at all intelligible to humans (so yes, you can use PRNG noise input into an image generator for fully original art).

The main reason copyright hasn't killed culture is because it's impractical (if not impossible) to truly enforce it to its full extent.