• The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.
  • An addendum to Rule 3 regarding fan-translated works of things such as Web Novels has been made. Please see here for details.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.

Rule 3 Addendum - Translations of Others' Works

Are you really suggesting that a non-commercial translation with the author's name/link to the original work should be considered plagiarism?
There's been a long-held rule that you can't repost other people's English stories without very explicit permission and now the rule is being applied to translated works. It's not really about plagiarism.
 
Are you really suggesting that a non-commercial translation with the author's name/link to the original work should be considered plagiarism?
Yes.

If they're deriving any benefit from their story being hosted where it is - and it's not your place to judge what counts as "benefit", stuff like likes/kudos and reader engagement would count - then a translation, or any other substitute, posted anywhere else will decrease their benefit. No amount of credit or citations/links can reduce that effect to 0. If they think the translation provides more value to the world than they get from the extra engagement, they can give you permission. If they don't, it's not your call to make to say otherwise. Or you can just email them the translation so they can post it on their account, if you're really doing this for selfless purposes and not trying to gain reputation/intangible internet points off someone else's work.

Edit to add: also I have personal experience in scientific writing, where "citing someone doesn't mean you're not plagiarizing them" is an established standard. Not that normal citations are plagiarism, and even decent-sized quotes labeled as direct quotes with a citation are relatively standard acceptable practice, but if you steal too much of someone else's verbatim text and not as a quote, slapping a citation as a bandaid attempt won't actually save you.
That depends a lot on the translator's approach and on the difference between the source & target cultures and whether the translator bothers to explain things or not.

I'm kind fond of lengthy addendum pages that explain stuff that appears in novels or manga.
That's not really about the translation aspect imo; the same arguments would apply to the same commentary posted on a copy of the work in the original language. In particular, the "substitution/it removes the need to buy/access a copy of the original" argument, which in my understanding of US copyright law would be the knockout argument.
 
Last edited:
There's been a long-held rule that you can't repost other people's English stories without very explicit permission and now the rule is being applied to translated works. It's not really about plagiarism.
It was in response to a specific post that referenced plagiarism.

EDIT:
Yes.

If they're deriving any benefit from their story being hosted where it is - and it's not your place to judge what counts as "benefit", stuff like likes/kudos and reader engagement would count - then a translation, or any other substitute, posted anywhere else will decrease their benefit. No amount of credit or citations/links can reduce that effect to 0. If they think the translation provides more value to the world than they get from the extra engagement, they can give you permission. If they don't, it's not your call to make to say otherwise. Or you can just email them the translation so they can post it on their account, if you're really doing this for selfless purposes and not trying to gain reputation/intangible internet points off someone else's work.
No. Urging you to read the definition of plagiarism.

That aside, your argument is still flawed because absolutely all fanfics fall under it.
 
Last edited:
If they're deriving any benefit from their story being hosted where it is - and it's not your place to judge what counts as "benefit", stuff like likes/kudos and reader engagement would count - then a translation, or any other substitute, posted anywhere else will decrease their benefit. No amount of credit or citations/links can reduce that effect to 0.
I would bet actual real money that any small time internet author's stories being more widely posted always gives them more benefit, not less. As long as appropriate credit is given of course. Your argument holds about as much water as the nonsense spouted by the record industry.
 
Ah, so it's not a response to anything, just a bizarre act of excessive self-censorship. Well, uh... it's weird. I know a whole site not hidden behind registration where there are not only translations of fanfics but also original works, not only temporary paywalls but also permanently closed paid chapters. And so if they don't have much of a problem, why it would be a problem for QQ I have no idea.
There's been a long-held rule that you can't repost other people's English stories without very explicit permission, for good reason, and now the rule is being applied to translated works.
 
This isn't a supression of free speech, this is not allowing those who translate an otherwise original work post it here without permission since DMCA take downs is something that no site wants.
It's not censorship to disallow plagiarism. You already couldn't just post someone else's work without permission.
I see these kinds of arguments everywhere these days and they make my skin crawl.

Free speech is the principle that if A wants to say/write something, and B wants to listen to/read it, C has no right to intervene. Disregarding that principle is censorship. Censorship is bad for several reasons:

-it's a restraint of trade which causes deadweight loss, and the deadweight loss can be extremely large for information because the cost of transmitting it is generally much less than the value of having it
-democracy is of far less use if the populace is ignorant or misled; a populace that does not know what is going on cannot judge its rulers effectively
-and most generally, the longer the list of banned things is, the less humans can flourish, the more work it is to know all of them, and the more power priests lawyers can arrogate to themselves by knowing it.

There are some cases in which free speech causes large-enough problems that censorship is the least-bad option. It's still censorship, though, and you should never forget that.
Youtube also has a 52% death rate over 10 years, which is more representative of the norm than the exception.

"The Internet is forever" is greatly overstating it, for pretty much everything. (And now you too may start datahoarding.)
My personal estimate a few years ago was the internet having a halflife of 10-15 years. I guess I was being slightly optimistic.
YouTube has a decay rate somewhat above average, as all banned users have their entire video histories torched and they're quite banhappy. It's typical-ish of megaplatforms (I don't go on megaplatforms, but I have a vague recollection of some of Reddit/Twitter/Facebook doing this also), but mid-sized platforms last longer.
 
Edit to add: also I have personal experience in scientific writing, where "citing someone doesn't mean you're not plagiarizing them" is an established standard.
There are a lot of weird dynamics in scientific writing & universities that comes from perverse incentives pushed by the academic publishers. This was of course also made worse by copyright and its interplay there.
 
There's definitely a problem with original works disappearing off the Internet. I highly endorse the use of downloader tools to keep your own copies of such things; archival is an honorable practice.

For cases where the original author is dead or unreachable, it's possible we'll make exceptions to the rule and allow reposting or translating. (We just issued such a waiver for the Who are you, Professor Umbridge? thread, since the author died in 2020.) However, you should always reach out to staff for permission before just posting something like this.
 
There's definitely a problem with original works disappearing off the Internet. I highly endorse the use of downloader tools to keep your own copies of such things; archival is an honorable practice.

For cases where the original author is dead or unreachable, it's possible we'll make exceptions to the rule and allow reposting or translating. (We just issued such a waiver for the Who are you, Professor Umbridge? thread, since the author died in 2020.) However, you should always reach out to staff for permission before just posting something like this.
Damn that was a reality check. May the author rest in peace.
 
No. Urging you to read the definition of plagiarism.

That aside, your argument is still flawed because absolutely all fanfics fall under it.
Did you, like, not read my posts? A few replies ago I go on about why fanfics in general are fair use and translations aren't. Although technically you're not wrong; claiming fair use is basically saying, "yes I'm taking your stuff, but it's justified."
I would bet actual real money that any small time internet author's stories being more widely posted always gives them more benefit, not less. As long as appropriate credit is given of course. Your argument holds about as much water as the nonsense spouted by the record industry.
If you actually believed that, you'd ask for permission. If you were right, you'd get permission. Presumably all the people that ask for, and get, permission are cases where the original authors agree that they'll get more benefit from the repost/translation. But that is, always, the original author's call to make.
Free speech is the principle that if A wants to say/write something, and B wants to listen to/read it, C has no right to intervene. Disregarding that principle is censorship
"If A wants to say/write something that C wrote first and A copied from C, and B wants to listen to/read it, B should listen to/read C's version unless A gets C's permission" is traditionally considered a different thing than censorship. (Arguing whether something is censorship is fundamentally misunderstanding how words work, namely, words mean what people use them to mean. "Censorship" is generally used for prohibiting a thing from being said by anyone at all.) And if you're going to appeal to restraint of trade, then the right to own one's original work is kinda important to having any trade at all.
 
Doesn't really change anything since just about every fan translated story I've read was so badly done that they've given me migraines. No, I'm not kidding, they are just THAT BAD. Even if another rule is added, it keeps trends the same.
meh most of webnovels are trash anyway , never read then. Indifferent to it
The reason most translations are crap is because of the original copywrite owners.

Essentially over in Asian countries the one who owns the fic is usually the website you post it to, who monetize it for them, so when the Chinese conglomerate that owns Webnovel decided to move into the western market they sent mass cease and desists to every single translation team that refused their slavery contract to work for them. (and it was a slavery contract no joke)

So all the dedicated professional translation teams had to shutter their doors and stop translating or work for Webnovel. Which tanked the quality of translations across the board. Now the only translations left are edited machine translations that can be done by random people that can't be shut down as easily.

The most ridiculous part is that webnovel is all edited machine translation now, past the free samples chapters at least, since very few translators wanted to keep working at slave rates...

And the situation of korean translations is somehow even worst since their sites all have both paywalls and signups that require a south korean id to sign up. They didn't even want their stuff translated even when the translators were willing to pay them in most cases...

I just asked the author, they responded by simply enjoying their works they have. I guess translating is over now.
Fuck man, I was enjoying your translations now, I and you have been shafted
This isn't the only site that is getting that translation, though whether it is the same person posting at different places idk, but if this discourages them from translating in general then that is sad.
 
I would bet actual real money that any small time internet author's stories being more widely posted always gives them more benefit, not less. As long as appropriate credit is given of course. Your argument holds about as much water as the nonsense spouted by the record industry.
There's a reason quite a few small bands put their music up for free on Bandcamp or the PirateBay.
"Censorship" is generally used for prohibiting a thing from being said by anyone at all.) And if you're going to appeal to restraint of trade, then the right to own one's original work is kinda important to having any trade at all.
Censorship (through a number of laws they pushed) and lawfare (in general, even without a "legitimate" case) is commonly used by monopolies to maintain their position.

The whole SLAPP thing.
 
Last edited:
I see these kinds of arguments everywhere these days and they make my skin crawl.

Free speech is the principle that if A wants to say/write something, and B wants to listen to/read it, C has no right to intervene. Disregarding that principle is censorship. Censorship is bad for several reasons:

-it's a restraint of trade which causes deadweight loss, and the deadweight loss can be extremely large for information because the cost of transmitting it is generally much less than the value of having it
-democracy is of far less use if the populace is ignorant or misled; a populace that does not know what is going on cannot judge its rulers effectively
-and most generally, the longer the list of banned things is, the less humans can flourish, the more work it is to know all of them, and the more power priests lawyers can arrogate to themselves by knowing it.

There are some cases in which free speech causes large-enough problems that censorship is the least-bad option. It's still censorship, though, and you should never forget that.
Go back to your dumb IRL stalker/yandere forum if you want your absolutist free speech nonsense (oh wait it got nuked off the net because you were "Kinda sodomizing the Proboards TOS" as you put it).

And kindly quit it with the "but not letting people post these fics will cause the downfall of democracy because free speech is essential" moral panic.

This is just a silly porn forum.
 
Did you, like, not read my posts? A few replies ago I go on about why fanfics in general are fair use and translations aren't. Although technically you're not wrong; claiming fair use is basically saying, "yes I'm taking your stuff, but it's justified."
Dude, it's not plagiarism, you're talking about copyright infringement, it's not the same thing.
 
I found out when I tried to look on Novelupdates for links to a story I read ages ago, and found that while it lists the translation group, and the number of chapters translated, it doesn't have links to jack shit anymore.
They still do links to works; you just need to have an account on there to see it. It's really shitty, but it is what it is.
 
Out of interest, what happens if translators write a fanfic, just in a different language? That should be fine, though it means extra work.
 
Dude, it's not plagiarism, you're talking about copyright infringement, it's not the same thing.
I haven't actually seen a consensus definition of plagiarism; what I've seen is that it's context-dependent. What's ok in undergrad essays is different from what's ok in published academic papers, both presumably different from what's ok in online articles, fiction books, etc. The one common thread I've seen is "plagiarism means taking too much of someone else's stuff without a legitimizing reason", and in this context the two reasonable definitions of "too much" are either (a) copyright infringement, or (b) what you, for hopefully well-supported reasons, think copyright infringement should be.

Or, if you have a different definition to propose, propose it?
 
If they're deriving any benefit from their story being hosted where it is - and it's not your place to judge what counts as "benefit", stuff like likes/kudos and reader engagement would count - then a translation, or any other substitute, posted anywhere else will decrease their benefit. No amount of credit or citations/links can reduce that effect to 0. If they think the translation provides more value to the world than they get from the extra engagement, they can give you permission. If they don't, it's not your call to make to say otherwise. Or you can just email them the translation so they can post it on their account, if you're really doing this for selfless purposes and not trying to gain reputation/intangible internet points off someone else's work.

Edit to add: also I have personal experience in scientific writing, where "citing someone doesn't mean you're not plagiarizing them" is an established standard. Not that normal citations are plagiarism, and even decent-sized quotes labeled as direct quotes with a citation are relatively standard acceptable practice, but if you steal too much of someone else's verbatim text and not as a quote, slapping a citation as a bandaid attempt won't actually save you.
You are confusing "plagiarism" and "copyright infringement".

Plagiarism is part of what are called "moral rights". Plagiarism is passing someone else's words off as your own, which is considered to steal the real author's recognition. Plagiarism is not actually against the law; it is against scientific etiquette and creative etiquette and may lose (a lot of) reputation within those communities, but you can't be sued for it. Plagiarism requires deception; as long as you make it clear who said what, and your claimed division is actually correct, you're not committing plagiarism, because it's about credit, not money.

Copyright infringement is an economically-based tort (that is, it's illegal; you can be sued over it). The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works by granting the author a monopoly and thus allowing them to charge high prices for access to that author's works. It's not about who gets the credit; it's a pure bribe. As such, posting someone else's copyrighted work without permission, even with attribution, is still copyright infringement.

(NB: I oppose copyright on the grounds that the deadweight losses and loss of mythopoeia outweigh the gains, particularly since the copyright industry has demonstrably been extremely willing and able to rent-seek rather than actually working for its keep. Patronage is enough, particularly with the Internet allowing decentralised patronage via Kickstarter/etc.)

Plagiarism and copyright infringement are different things with different rationales, even though they sometimes coincide. Don't use the language of one to refer to the other.
 
But that is, always, the original author's call to make.
They really shouldn't have any say in whether two or more people decide to share cultural works with one another.

That's like an author ordering all their books burned (even private copies) and stories/works memory holed because they changed to minds or want to rewrite and make new sales out of that (or some other inane reason).

To participate in culture is to accept that the fruit of one's labor shared are thence part of culture. Attempts to then attack culture shouldn't be considered acceptable.
 
Write a fanfic, as in 'completely write up a different story' or translate the fanfic?
Translate the fanfic but add some original content. So add some new characters, or change them. Change the setting, change some names, adjust the plot. Big enough changes to call it a fanfic but not so much that you are creating completely new work.

I don't know if you've ever read some of those harry potter fanfics that are basically just cannon rehashes but if those are fine then...
 
If you actually believed that, you'd ask for permission. If you were right, you'd get permission. Presumably all the people that ask for, and get, permission are cases where the original authors agree that they'll get more benefit from the repost/translation. But that is, always, the original author's call to make.
My being right has no bearing on whether or not whatever author would give permission, because people are weird.

"If A wants to say/write something that C wrote first and A copied from C, and B wants to listen to/read it, B should listen to/read C's version unless A gets C's permission" is traditionally considered a different thing than censorship. (Arguing whether something is censorship is fundamentally misunderstanding how words work, namely, words mean what people use them to mean. "Censorship" is generally used for prohibiting a thing from being said by anyone at all.)
Censorship is the action of preventing or limiting access to communication and/or information. Your ABC scenario qualifies. Check a dictionary some time.

And if you're going to appeal to restraint of trade, then the right to own one's original work is kinda important to having any trade at all.
Even if we ignore you being overly general here, you're still way off. People can and will trade all day long without need for any sort of copyright monopoly enforcement.

I haven't actually seen a consensus definition of plagiarism
Have you considered checking a dictionary? They typically contain consensus definitions. Wild idea, I know.

All of what you're saying is basically just reading from Ye Olde Copyright Maximalist Playbook and I'm not buying any of it.
 
I'm not sure how this violates any rights when profiting from fanfiction, as far as I know, is itself illegal, and paywall in such works is a gray area, smoothly transitioning into illegal if access is restricted permanently, not for a limited period of time. This is in relation to fanfiction, of course, not original works.
Ah, but people who subscribe to Patreon aren't paying for the author's fanfiction; they're paying to get early access, to vote on what they write, and/or to support their original works.
 
Last edited:
They really shouldn't have any say in whether two or more people decide to share cultural works with one another.

That's like an author ordering all their books burned (even private copies) and stories/works memory holed because they changed to minds or want to rewrite and make new sales out of that (or some other inane reason).

To participate in culture is to accept that the fruit of one's labor shared are thence part of culture. Attempts to then attack culture shouldn't be considered acceptable.
Honestly it is a clash between western and eastern values. I remember situations where a korean author asked for fan translators to stop translating even though they were willing to pay the author and said author had no plans to have it translated themselves.

Then there was RoyalRoad that existed to translated "legendary moonlight sculptor" until they had to pivot to fanfics then original novels when that author asked them to stop. Though at least that author was actually planning to publish internationally.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top