I don’t know if this is the right subreddit, but since it is related to books maybe someone can help me. In my native language there isn’t almost any online published book or manga. I want to try to translate some manga and publish them since i think that i can also enjoy the plot during the translation process. As for books i don’t think that i’m able to translate whole books because it seems very time consuming, so i just think to write alredy translated books manually. I’m a little confused about this topic so i will ask some questions in hope that someone can help me.
1) What are some skills that i can develop through this process?
2) Is this process illegal (copyright)? In order to clarify i don’t want to profit so the books will be free and accessible by everyone.
3) If it’s illegal is there any thing i can do to make it legal or to bypass the problems?
4) Where can i publish them?
5) Where to edit the translations, especially for mangas, because it doesn’t seem practical at all to do it in powerpoint with textbox to cover the previous words?
6) Should i write the books manually or is just scanning enough or is it easier to translate e books with tools like google translate and then “just” edit the translation?
7) do you think that this is a stupid idea to do it for free and by myself?
by plencSamurai
2 Comments
It is completely illegal as it violates the copyrights, doesn’t matter if you wish to profit or not. The only way to make it not illegal is to acquire the right to publish them. This is, in most cases, impossible without a publishing company.
If you intend to in any way sell, trade, give, publish, or publicly modify the books and manga, rather than translate solely for your own private use, then you will need explicit, usually written, permission from the copyright holder, and should you fail to obtain one and engage in any kind of redistribution, you will be violating copyright law, and may be subject to civil action. Note, that Japanese copyright law is very much different than that in many other countries, in that it does not permit the same kind of free use as elsewhere. Whether you will actually be sued depends entirely on the publishers and authors. If the original books were completely free and public, then your risks are lower, but if one is expected to pay for the original, then you certainly cannot legally distribute the translations for free, especially alongside original material, eg. the drawings. You could always publish the works yourself on Amazon, or you would need to find a professional publisher. The best way to edit would probably be to first compile the translations in a separate text file, then use an image editor, such as Photoshop, to insert the translations over the original text.