[Petition] BentStuff's Final Fantasy Ultimania books into English

Interbooks

Interbooks

Rookie Adventurer
Hi to all.
My name is Paolo and at the moment I am working for a translation/editing/publishing company in Japan. They asked me what we can translate from Japan that would sell overseas and I immediately thought about the BentStuff Ultimania books.

The BentStuff's Ultimania books are companion guides to the Final Fantasy and other SquareEnix games. They include not only the walkthroughs but also, detailed information of the game's story, characters, world and so on. You can also find artworks and concept designs. I think the you can call these books "The Bible of Final Fantasy".
Just search 'final fantasy ultimania' on google and you'll find a lot of images related to this books.

They asked me to gather people interested on having this books translated in English so I created a petition. I can't post link, you can find the petition on the JRPG subreddit.

We will try to negotiate with BentStuff/SquareEnix using this data so I hope to gather as much as possible signs.
Thanking you in advance for your cooperation.


Regards
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
It's ironic that you posted, as we actually just discussed your petition. :monster: We're planning to promote it in an upcoming news post.

Thanks for wanting to do this!
 
Interbooks

Interbooks

Rookie Adventurer
Hope to make this true. I am too a gamer and Final Fantasy fan and I know how much the Ultimania books are valuable.
I thanks all the FF fan for the cooperation.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Does anyone have time to write an article about this on the front page? I should be back in a few hours but if someone can whack something up before then that would be good :)
 
Shademp

Shademp

420
In the scenario that Ultimanias get published in English, our site will be forced to remove a lot of content because we'll be in the sniper scope of copyright. I'm not protesting against the petition, in fact I was one of the first who signed it, just raising the fact/reminder. No doubt some translation choices would end up questionable and under our scrutiny, so I hope (in this potential distant future) that TLS will be a place to dissect controversial choices in the official Ultimania translations and to publish articles with this analytical theme.
 
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The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

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TresDias
If it happens it happens, but given we aren't selling our translations and that private individuals can't be prevented from translating copyrighted material into any language they choose, I don't think there'll be a problem.
 
Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Yeah, what Shademp said; I have no clue whatsoever about copyright laws, derivative works and prior art though. A quick google does state a translation is considered a derivative work though. TL;DR: idk. It would be teh suck if TLS had to take down its translations.
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization feels that translations should be considered protected. Of course, the United States disagrees to a significant extent, but is much more favorable in these situations when the translation is for non-profit (i.e. scholarly) use, as is largely the case for us. That the forum gets revenue from ads probably voids that, though, but maybe not -- the front page doesn't have them, right?

Where are our servers, Yop? In The Netherlands?

If so, while translations published there cannot be considered original works, I think they are considered protected. I looked this up one time when it was brought up before. I'm not sure the extent to which any international copyright treaties (e.g. the Berne Convention) may complicate this, but it's generally held that you follow the guidelines within the country in question. Obviously that country's judiciary can choose to defer to the copyright holder anyway, though.
 
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Interbooks

Interbooks

Rookie Adventurer
Thanks everyone. I'll make sure you get a review copy if we succeed.
i think that unless you are making profit from the translation then it is considered as a fan word so there'll be no problem.
 
Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Servers are indeed located in NL, yeah, :monster:.

Also, at least coming from SE, it seems they stopped cracking down on copyrighted stuff; back when I was on ACF, there were numerous occasions where they got letters from lawyers telling them to take down the trailers they hosted. Which is silly, of course, but that was then. Nowadays they care less (thank fuck).
 
Cat Rage Room

Cat Rage Room

Great Old One
AKA
Mog
Guys, we have to keep this in mind; there is no way this is going to happen if we keep this in confines of TLS. To give this a real shot to succeed, we have to spread the world. Tell all of your friends!

Tres, on that note would it be asking too much to make a topic about it on the FFVII board on GameFaqs? You have a lot of clout in your rep there, so I figure it would be a good idea.
 
Octo

Octo

KULT OF KERMITU
AKA
Octo, Octorawk, Clarky Cat, Kissmammal2000
I'll put it on fucking tumblr or somethin once i sober up.but its probably beyter if someone more Ff oriented cough cough Fangu and Lic cough does it

edit..Also tres dont be modest youre the biggest swingingest dick in the Ffvii fandom.

edit I mean it as a compliment not saying youre a dick.
 
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Selphie Tilmitt

Selphie Tilmitt

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Maidenofwar
I could post it somewhere, I know the site is currently in the bad books in some circles but this is important and maybe something like this transcends stuff? Should I?

Or maybe Octo posting it on tumblr will get it circulated that way? :monster:

just put cloud/aerith in the tags :shifty:
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
You don't even have to mention TLS, as it's an FF fandom thing, not a TLS thing.


Also, I'm currently spamming up the GameFAQs boards with this. Targets: boards for VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2, X-2 International+Last Mission, X|X-2 HD Remaster (all four of them), XII, XIII (both consoles), XIII-2 (both consoles), Lightning Returns (both consoles) and Dissidia 012.

EDIT: And done!
 
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Lex

Lex

Administrator
I'm also going to make a tumblr post about it.

Tets, thanks for writing that <3. I'm changing the title (we need to keep them 2 lines max) and also you forgot to add an excerpt again. The box to add an excerpt is underneath the main input box when you're editing a post. You need to expand it to be able to see it (either that or its somewhere else on the page idk).
 
Tetsujin

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
Prince Lex said:
I'm also going to make a tumblr post about it.

Tets, thanks for writing that <3. I'm changing the title (we need to keep them 2 lines max) and also you forgot to add an excerpt again. The box to add an excerpt is underneath the main input box when you're editing a post. You need to expand it to be able to see it (either that or its somewhere else on the page idk).
Click to expand...

I didn't forget, I didn't know how. I didn't realize I needed to click on that thing on the top and then click on another thing and then it made the thing at the bottom appear but it's all good now. :monster:
 
Interbooks

Interbooks

Rookie Adventurer
I am back! We decided to contact Square Enix. We are preparing various estimate and searching for similar case where the book sold well. The petition is growing even if at slow pace and we have also a lots of comments from the fans.
 
The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Good luck! Which Ultimania would you guys tackle first? My vote would be for the three 25th Memorial Ultimanias. Probably the widest appeal.
 
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Interbooks

Interbooks

Rookie Adventurer
Yesterday they sent me to buy one Ultimania book to make a word count. I found the FFX Remaster Ultimania and counted 430000~ characters. It is very approximately and the number will surely shrink. I am trying to get a more precise count using OCR software.

The Ultimania are pretty massive and I too think we should start with the 25th Memorial Ultimanias. These three books contain a lots of artworks and concept design so it will require less money and less time to get the work done. Less money mean that the probability the Square Enix accept our ideas is bigger.
 
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