But Dark Translations is selling the translation. I think a C&D is fair on that basis alone. I do agree regarding minori though. Minori is being disingenuous–they have no actual interest in localizing their games. Their motivations are political rather than financial/commercial.
Though they have 7 years to do it. Clannad was first released in 2004. That means they have until 2011 to get an official translation.
As Alucard from Hellsing would say: Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! HURRY!!! 
2chan is fun. From one wonderful post: 
Rawr! Eroge fan on Eroge fan action. Who needs government regulation? We’ll kill ourselves first. :lol:
It’s the same bias: anything working in their favor is good, anything working against them is bad.
At ACen one year, I was at a panel led by some industry folks. They said fansubbing has a direct impact on their sales. He cited a specific example of Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku, for which fansubs of the first few episodes (but NOT the whole show) existed. And the sales figures were very unusual: they sold more copies of the later volumes (for which no fansubs existed) than the earlier volumes.
This almost never happens, because people don’t tend to pick shows up towards the end: typically the first volume is the highest, and then total sales per volume goes down from there. (If word of mouth increases a show’s popularity after it’s close to done, then the back-catalog volumes get a boost in sales along with the rest.)
The implication is clear - fansubs directly compete with the legit releases.
So I think it’s reasonable to assume something similar will happen with unauthorized fan translations. The translations themselves won’t work without a copy of the game, but that won’t bother the pirates. They will download the game then apply the patch. If the patch tries to prevent itself from working with pirate copies … well, that’s DRM, and we know how long that will last. So inevitably … a few people might buy the actual game, and use the patch - but 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more people will just hoist the Jolly Roger.
Fewer people will buy a Japanese copy of the game, and then apply the patch - than would buy a professionally-done localization. It’s more cumbersome, it’s more expensive, and it’s lower quality.
The most positive spin you can put on it is that the fansubs hooked a bunch of customers to go and buy the later DVDs who might not otherwise have done so at all… while most of those fansub customers did not buy the episodes they’d already seen fansubbed, the fansubbing could still have increased sales in general. But that doesn’t help games much unless there’s a translation patch for the first game in a series and then later games in the series are brought over…
What about fanlation patches for the first third or half of a game? Or, better,one third or half of the routes? That could work… or not, since people buying the Japanese game may feel cheated.
Could just make translation patches for trial versions or freely available cut-down versions like insani used to. GIGA gives you pretty much the entire route of one character in BALDR SKY for download, and the Kurohane part (I think it’s the better half) of Katahane is still available through Holyseal, etc.
If they’re doing this on principal, they could still send a C&D for the trail versions: something being free, doesn’t negate IP and copyright. :o
True, but if they really do have any intention of licensing, someone else doing the effort of distributing your translated demo for you really IS free advertising.
If they’re doing this by the letter of the law, then yeah, there’s no question (and there wasn’t any question of that either since we had already established that). However, I thought “intent and consequences” were under discussion here.
If they can tolerate doujinshi, they should be able to tolerate fan translation as well.
Doujinshi don’t compete with potential licensees.
Yea… but minori (and the companies like them) wouldn’t care. I’d bet real money, they’d C&D a demo.
Doujinshi are also tolerated inside Japan. Outside of Japan, thing work differently. Case in point: see Square Enix shutting down the Chrono Trigger 2 fan project in the West, but not doing a thing about the OVER 9000 variations to fan made Dragon Quest in Japan (digital game or otherwise). There’s like two or three dozen doujin variants of Megaman and Castlevania floating about in the Land of the Rising Sun: some more blatantly obvious than others.
And I thought I was discussing fan translations in general, not just minori ^^; Frankly, I think minori would be willing to C&D NNL’s “installer-only” release, since they went after ExtractData.
I am not familiar with doujin games primarily based on these (non-eroge) popular companies. Do you have some links? I also view doujinshi somewhat differently. From all the published ??? guidelines I’ve read so far, doujinshi generally seem to be more in the clear than a translation patch. For example, here’s the relevant section of TYPE-MOON’s derivative work guidelines:
The ‘problem’ - and why DT should probably nod, say yes, and stay well clear of minori titles, is simple.
1: Copyright laws are international, and under the Berne Convention, it would be treated as if Minori was a US company - in which case, DT is boned. Both Japan and the US are signatories; the DMCA is the US’ adjustment to the WIPO Copyright Treaty which expands it into information technology products.
2: The US is trying to get other countries to stop pirating US products.
Point 2 is important - in order to have any credibility, they will HAVE to vigorously pursue such lawsuits, in order to have a moral leg to stand on when asking other countries to follow these laws. So, I would be… at least cautious, if I were DT.
Also, having a donation option means there’s an easy to follow money trail. Again, boned.
It seems Innocent Grey has asked to remove the Kara no Shoujo and Cartagra translation projects.
http://novelnews.net/2010/05/06/kara-no-shoujo-and-cartagra-projects-cded-by-copyright-owners/
http://tsukuru.info/tlwiki/index.php?title=Kara_no_Shoujo
This one kind of bugs since the Kara no Shoujo project has been going on for 2 years now (Maybe Innocent Grey made deal with Jast or Mangagamer?). However it seems the people working on the project will still finish it.
If these morons just keep taking down their projects at the drop of a hat like this, why do they even bother trying to run the site to begin with?
what do you expect them to do, wait for a court order and damages to be awarded?
Actually, this seems to be a pretty common thing for you. You’re happy to let everyone else take the risk for this kind of thing, but what are you doing? Why don’t you start up your own tlwiki alternative, if you think it’s so safe?
What do I expect them to do? Well, I would certainly expect an obscure group of people, who work on a modification patch at no profit on an obscure product coming from an equally obscure company hailing from all the way across the planet, to wait for that court order that’ll come from said company when hell freezes over.
/sarcasm
I expect them to stay calm and just ignore these jackasses. How’s that?
I find your use of ad hominems to be rather masterful–It’s pretty amazing how people can think they can simply redirect an argument by associating the subject with an individual that has nothing to do with the issue at hand in some thinly-veiled attempt at guilt-tripping him. I could care less about whether I am or am not taking any “risks” (lol) like them–It has nothing to do with the topic here.
Newsflash: This is a common thing for me, and if you think I haven’t had any experience with people like you who attempt to cover those who don’t take any accountability for their own actions and expect me to respect them when they cower like spineless chickens with their heads cut off, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t know about you, but I don’t do “blind faith”.
Let’s get one thing straight to begin with; they are not being ‘jackasses’ by sending a C&D over a translation project that is their own property. That is well within their right as copyright holder and something they are expected to do if they ever hope to see their stuff localised.
It’s one thing to continue to work on unauthorised fan translations; it’s another thing entirely to do so in the face of a cease and desist. The company knows that you’re doing it! There is absolutely no legal, ethical or moral justification for continuing in the face of this.
Incorrect! It has everything to do with the topic. You’re happy to authoritatively state that tlwiki should openly defy the law, that JAST should ignore the political climate and release without modification whatever they want under the assumption that nothing will happen. The point is that you’re not the one in danger here. You’re perfectly safe, so that if/when tlwiki DOES get brought to court by, say, GIGA (or their parent company) or if one of JAST’s latest releases does end up on fox and cnn along with another stupid political outcry, you can say ‘huh, look at that’.
This is not exactly ‘ad hominem’ because I’m not using you as a person to justify my argument as to why tlwiki should not ignore a C&D - my justification was in the first sentence of my post. I’m simply drawing comparisons between this and the earlier Kazoku Keikaku stuff to make a statement about you as a person. This isn’t ad hominem because I’m never using you to base my argument (e.g. you are wrong because you also think this). Instead, the object of the argument is you and the justification comes from your posts. So, yes, while I am making a statement about you, my justification doesn’t use you so it’s still not ad hominem!
Isn’t assuming that everything will be all hunky-dory if they continue as usual blind faith too, though? My path is one of caution. Arguably it’s safer, and hence relies less on blind faith.