TNT: Aggregator Sites

I’m back for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday with my thoughts on a rather touchy subject. It’s all about Aggregator Sites!

Aggregator Sites?: Here’s the definition you can google, Aggregator refers to a web site or computer software that aggregates a specific type of information from multiple online sources. These websites use internet tools to host other people’s work from various locations all in one site. It’s both convenient and highly controversial in the translation community. Some people are fine with it, some are fine with it in certain circumstances, and others absolutely aren’t okay with no matter what.

Controversy? Really?: Yeah, in fact one of the biggest reasons there’s a huge dispute going on between Qidian International and Wuxiaworld and the rest of the translation community is the fact that they are illegally hosting stuff from Wuxiaworld when Wuxiaworld holds the exclusive rights to host those works. It’s not even the simple fact that they are hosting another translator’s effort, although that would still be in violation of the agreement that was posted publicly a few months back. They are flat out taking works of translators and putting on their website. That’s why the novel translation subreddit has banned QI from posting anything on the subreddit. They fall under the aggregator site rules that the subreddit enforces. The fact that NovelUpdates doesn’t do this is another point of contention and frankly I’m in full agreement with the reddit side of the community. QI has done nothing but lie and bully the translation community since it’s arrived on the scene over a year ago. But that’s another topic for another day.

Do you use them?: No I don’t, mostly because they often have unedited versions of works that get regular updates after their initial posting which can completely change the tone of a chapter.

Not even for QI titles?: Look I’ve got no love of QI, I’ve made that clear multiple times in these columns and in the translation community in general. So I just don’t read their work unless it’s hosted off their websites, webnovel.com and gravitytales.com.

GT isn’t Qidian: Except they are, the founder GoodGuy Person sold 90% of his shares in the company to Qidian and therefore it’s a Qidian website to me, and most of the translation community. It’s a pity since there were some decent original web novels, but the fact that the authors have chosen to go to a place that is proven to be deceitful is just too big of a mark against them for me to even bother with their works.

That’s it for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday. Do you approve of Aggregator Sites? Do you use them? Leave a comment below.

 

TNT: Qidian Redux

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m back with another post about some lying, and thieving assholes. It’s Qidian Redux!

What now: God so much has happened since the last post about this two months ago that it’s really quite ridiculous. So I’ll start with what’s happened since. There was more trash talking happening on the novel updates forums and novel translations subreddit. That is pretty much a given, there were obvious throwaway accounts on both sides, although I’ll be straight up and say I saw a hell of a lot more Qidian International throwaway accounts. So they’ve already lost my trust, and were losing more credibility with me as the situation progresses. Their PR person was apparently fired, personally I say good riddance they were a joke and terrible at their job.

Then the community is thrown into upheaval again with the departure of some translators, including one of the most prominent translators in the community CKTalon, jumping ship from Wuxiaworld to Qidian International. According to CK it was just because of the money. Personally I think he’s foolish, they’ve shown that they won’t keep faith and so signing anything with them at this time seems to be incredibly stupid. What doesn’t speak well of him is the fact that he left Gravity Tales, another translation website prior to all this starting up. Him joining Wuxiaworld was part of the initial situation in the first place, so him leaving again isn’t a good sign of his character. Personally while I enjoyed the series he translated, which even included series like I’m Really a Superstar, I couldn’t in good conscience keep supporting such a person.  Not to mention that the Qidian International website still is terrible.

So the community is getting over this, and when we all think this isn’t going to become any more chaotic we have another situation pop up courtesy of Qidian International slinging slander and more lies. They hired another person to be their PR person, u/HighJaystar, and started another war on Wuxiaworld by sending a DMCA request to try to take down the entire website, which failed, and than proceeded to steal all of the Qidian works on Wuxiaworld and copy and paste them onto their own website, which is still terrible to use. I actually asked HighJaystar about trying to fix their website when this was all going down and he was acting as the QI PR person, but I never received another response after that question was brought up. I guess he was too busy making personal remarks with the company account.

These actions gets them banned from the subreddit entirely, which is highly understandable and frankly Novel Updates should just have banned them as well due to their own rules regarding aggregator sites, which QI had clearly become after stealing translations. Those translations are counted as completely different under International Copyright law as far as I know from what I’ve learned since this whole mess has started.  They did implement a filtering option to remove Qidian International works completely, but frankly this seems to be caving in to me.

So that happens just a couple weeks ago, and now just a few days ago we have yet another situation where GGP, the prior owner and operator of Gravity Tales, whom I mentioned above, has apparently signed away most of his rights to the translations and operations of his website to Qidian International. Apparently many of the translators at the website were unaware of this. This all occurs just a couple days after GGP announces they had signed a licensing deal with Qidian. GGP lost a lot of faith from the community after this action. While I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, the fact that he wasn’t sticking with the community against known thieves of translators isn’t helping his image.

There is a lot more that went down, but those were the big incidents and I feel like I’ve wrote enough on the subject. I’ll provide a link to someone’s pretty unbiased timeline of the issue below.

That’s it for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday, personally I ask that everyone boycott Qidian International, or if you were already doing so continue to do so. Their actions have been irrepressible thus far.

QI vs Wuxiaworld Timeline:

Part 1

Part 2

There are more things that occurred, like QI implementing ads that you must interact with on their website to continue reading, which apparently is even more unusable now. But I haven’t gone back to their website since this all started. They’ve also stolen artwork from others as well to use as cover art, but that isn’t anything new.

TNT: Qidian

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m going to posting some links mainly. The Translation community is reeling from the betrayal of Qidian towards Wuxiaworld. It’s all about Qidian!

What is this about?: So on May 22nd, Qidian posted a defamatory thread in the Novel Updates forum. It was targeted specifically towards Wuxiaworld, arguably the largest fan translation site for Far Eastern novels in the world.  They demanded 31 licenses back from WW even though they had come to an agreement. The statements in that thread were blatantly false, and were poaching the translators and editors of those series. It was insulting.

What’s happened since?: Quite a bit has fallen out from RWX’s reply for Wuxiaworld to someone leaking what is arguably a slave contract, if you work with Qidian. There have been posts on both sides of the argument, but frankly anyone with half a brain can tell that this is all Qidian trying to consolidate what is already in a monopoly in China.  They have 97% of the market in China, and the parent company of Qidian is Tencent, a huge organization that owns stakes in both Riot Games (League of Legends) and Epic Games (Gears of War). That is just a small part of what they own. Not only have they gone back on their word to RWX, but they’ve gone back on their word to the community. I personally wrote about QI being a huge step forward for the community. I guess I was short sighted, like so many others.

Not only that, but everything that’s come out explains the lack of reply I got to an email I sent to their suggestions personnel requesting them to make the site better for readers. I had gotten a couple replies, telling me to log in, which is locked behind an invite code that you might not be able to get, but when I described what the issue was in great detail with a step-by step replication guide, I never got another email from them. Clearly they are being stingy and truly don’t hold the communities’ best interests at heart.

If you want to read each post and the Reddit reactions to them I advise you to check out these links.

Qidian’s initial NU post | Reddit Thread about it

Wuxiaworld’s Formal Response | Reddit Thread about it

Discussion thread on what the /r/noveltranslations community response will be

New Qidian Statement | Reddit Thread about it

Qidian Contract Leak | Reddit Thread about it

Qidian Owns Electronic Copyrights

Noodletown’s View on the Issue (truly a hilarious read, god the guy is either really stupid or deliberately trying to look like a dumbass to pass info on. Personally I’m leaning towards the former, but who really knows)

Noodletown’s Reply to Being Called Out on Lying in Previous Thread

Chinese Reactions to this Issue

That’s it for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday. I’m plenty pissed off, and I’ll be boycotting Qidian International, something I couldn’t even read in the first place due to their crappy website. I advise other’s to do the same, especially since they want to put everything behind a paywall.

TNT: A Victory for Translators!

This week for Translation Necessary Thursday I’m really excited to spread the news of a super important announcement. It’s a Victory for Translators!

What happened?: Ren Woxin, or RWX, from the Wuxia World website announced last week a really interesting piece of news. He’s come to an agreement with the Chinese Web Novelists at 17K and will now be an official site for reading Xianxia and Wuxia novels in English. He wanted to avoid the situtation that occurred with Japanese Light Novels with Yen Press and their peers and the fan translation community. Basically the fans translated so many volumes ahead when the official license was announced that it would take years for the official release to catch up. People stoop to pirating the stories because they didn’t want to be so behind in the story compared to the original untranslated release. For example Spice and Wolf just finished being released recently in English. However the fan translation of the entire series has been on the internet for years. It’s a pity because while most people wouldn’t mind supporting the author, they just don’t want to wait years to continue the story. However RWX will keep the translation for free up on Wuxia World, while allowing those who want to read on the go and those who want to support the author to buy an eBook of the work. It’s a Win-Win for everyone!

What does this mean?: This announcement changes the translation scene in ways that are difficult to describe in a short article. Needless to say Yen Press and peers need to step up their translation speed to keep up with RWX’s unprecedented and mind boggling speed of translating Coiling Dragon. He finished the entire 21 volume series in 11 months, while Yen Press releases a volume every three or four months of Sword Art Online. I wonder whose going to get more business? The people who translate with quality at a speed that readers can appreciate or one that translates with a similar or lesser quality at a speed that readers despise? I know my answer.

That’s it for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday, but what are your thoughts on this announcement? Also please read the announcement by RWX at Wuxia World that is linked at the top of the article. This sort of thing would also be impossible with the TPP, so let your governmental representative know that it’s a piece of shit and needs to be stopped! Many thanks to RWX for his wonderful work!