The World Ends With You: Final Remix allegedly stolen the original game's Italian fan translation

[smileyhead]

The World Ends With You: Final Remix, a Nintendo Switch remake of the DS original, just released on 12 October and includes an Italian translation - something that the original did not have, however, a person who goes online by the name of Mewster did make a fan translation for the original.
When the remake released, Mewster was interested to see how the official translation compares to his, so he tuned into a live stream of the game. Apparently, an estimated 90% of the text matches with Mewster's translation down to every word and line break.
Mewster is not angry about this, but was surprised to see that his translation was used without question or credit. He isn't looking for conpensation, though.
Square-Enix has yet to comment on this situation.

Source • ROMhacking.net

 

[Reploid]

SE are fucks

 

[The Catboy]

I really want to see where this goes. Fan translations tend to be a very touchy subject and SE actually has a history of shutting them down. So I really want to see how they are going to handle this case.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Real source is not Kotaku though, but rather RomHacking.net:
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27167.0

You can perhaps add the original source to the OP, @smileyhead, or perhaps @Chary, just to further cement the news with true facts and from the people who actually worked on the italian translation

I saw the thread when it opened up, and man is this a shitty thing to do.
They should at least offer some royalties to the guys behind the translation, it's such an awful thing to do, and not even asked for permission neither.
I am not sure if this can even go to court, but it will for sure be an interesting thing to follow if they end up doing so.

 

[Bedel]

Well afaik this didn't happend with the spanish one. I played the DS fan translation four times now, and I can see some clear diferences with the oficial (and new) one. I could be wrong, but I think this one is a totally new. Indeed, this new one is worst than the old one, at least with some litle things (they didn't bothered to transte all or most textures)

 

[cearp]

SE are fucks

I doubt they had an in-house Italian translator, so it's not really SE's fault. You can't check everything.
If it was in-house, then sure, very bad of SE.

 

[smileyhead]

Real source is not Kotaku though, but rather RomHacking.net:
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27167.0

You can perhaps add the original source to the OP, @smileyhead, or perhaps @Chary, just to further cement the news with true facts and from the people who actually worked on the italian translation

I saw the thread when it opened up, and man is this a shitty thing to do.
They should at least offer some royalties to the guys behind the translation, it's such an awful thing to do, and not even asked for permission neither.
I am not sure if this can even go to court, but it will for sure be an interesting thing to follow if they end up doing so.

Edited the OP to contain the original source instead, thanks!

 

[ShadowOne333]

Edited the OP to contain the original source instead, thanks!

Welcome
It for sure brings some more detail and clarity to the whole affair, instead of just dramatizing it like Kotaku does lol

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Real source is not Kotaku though, but rather RomHacking.net:
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27167.0

You can perhaps add the original source to the OP, @smileyhead, or perhaps @Chary, just to further cement the news with true facts and from the people who actually worked on the italian translation

I saw the thread when it opened up, and man is this a shitty thing to do.
They should at least offer some royalties to the guys behind the translation, it's such an awful thing to do, and not even asked for permission neither.
I am not sure if this can even go to court, but it will for sure be an interesting thing to follow if they end up doing so.

I think because fan translations are derivative works he doesn't actually own the rights to it, SE does. So they are completely within their right to do this although it is kind of a dick move.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I think because fan translations are derivative works he doesn't actually own the rights to it, SE does. So they are completely within their right to do this although it is kind of a dick move.

Afaik, translations, even if they are derivative work, can end up applying for copyright.
This could certainly lead into legal issues with Square, but we'll have to wait how this one turns out and how both parties react to this.

 

[VinsCool]

Remember when Final Fantasy Type 0 was continuously being asked for in the west, but ignored, so a team of fan translators worked days and nights to provide a patch, only to get C&D the day before release, AND officially announced localised for the PS4 the very next day?
That was one of the sickest thing I remember SE doing, after taking down ROMhacks and fan projects.

This gives quite a bitter taste if they indeed stole borrowed happen to have a suspiciously similar translation job applied to their game without any credit.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Remember when Final Fantasy Type 0 was continuously being asked for in the west, but ignored, so a team of fan translators worked days and nights to provide a patch, only to get C&D the day before release, AND officially announced localised for the PS4 the very next day?
That was one of the sickest thing I remember SE doing, after taking down ROMhacks and fan projects.

This gives quite a bitter taste if they indeed stole borrowed happen to have a suspiciously similar translation job applied to their game without any credit.

This puts romhackers (myself included) into a very tight spot.
What if one of our translations ends up being used without our consent?
Hundreds of hours of work from one's self down the drain, so that an already fruitful company can shove more money down their pockets.

I mean, romhacking as it is has always been a grey spot when it comes to legalities, but there should be a protection for us romhackers that do this kind of work, and then comes a company, takes it and resells it, easy as that?

Just because they own the original game's copyrights, doesn't mean they are entitled to every modification a romhacker has put out there.
Something similar to a GPL or GNU license must be in place for romhacking work asap.

 

[Cyan]

IP owners would be in their right to c&d a translation project, the original text/story is copyrighted. But does the translation also has its own copyright (italian translator word's choice etc.), or is owned by the original copyright owner? I never seen such a case, I don't know what to think legally, nor how "derivative work" works. If it's now "official" is the translation patch illegal to share and considered an extracted data, even though it's more an injected data?
I think the Italian translator's reaction is good, not asking anything or compensation, he didn't do it for money and wasn't officially hired to do it. asking his permission might not be needed, but would have been a good move from SE. a little credit would have been nice.
Are we sure there's no credit ? The Credit sequence usually provide the translator's name. which name is given for Italian version?

It's bad not being credited, but at the same time it could be seen as a reward or a satisfaction too, recognized for being a good enough work to be included in an official release.
edit: I've read Mewster's comment, that's how he feels, he is happy his work is in an official release. a little thank you would have been nice.

 

[Ace001]

Pizza Time~

 

[koimayeul]

Ouch... If this prove true as it seem, to give credit to the fan translators would be the least to do for SE.

Remember when Final Fantasy Type 0 was continuously being asked for in the west, but ignored, so a team of fan translators worked days and nights to provide a patch, only to get C&D the day before release, AND officially announced localised for the PS4 the very next day?
That was one of the sickest thing I remember SE doing, after taking down ROMhacks and fan projects.

This gives quite a bitter taste if they indeed stole borrowed happen to have a suspiciously similar translation job applied to their game without any credit.

In fact, Type-0 fan translation release "leaked from a rogue member" because of the official localisation announcement; from this article there were long civil exchanges between the team and SE officials for ongoing years...

Edit: Meh, forgot "from this article" source :

https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-fan-translation-has-become-a-fiasco-1608340061

 

[the_randomizer]

Oh look, Square Enix half-assing something yet again.

 

[Vieela]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if they really used the fan translation. Square Enix has quite the background of being extremely over-protective with their games and especially fan translations. It's ironic.

 

[Flame]

SE should give Mewster life time supply of your games and pizza.

an offer which he cant refuse.

bada bing bada boom. problem solved.

 

[AxlSt00pid]

This reminds me of the unofficial spanish translator that was even dubbed

Does the Switch version of TWEWY have an official spanish translation? And if it does (which I doubt) did SE steal the unofficial one too?

 

[Bedel]

This reminds me of the unofficial spanish translator that was even dubbed

Does the Switch version of TWEWY have an official spanish translation? And if it does (which I doubt) did SE steal the unofficial one too?

Well afaik this didn't happend with the spanish one. I played the DS fan translation four times now, and I can see some clear diferences with the oficial (and new) one. I could be wrong, but I think this one is a totally new. Indeed, this new one is worst than the old one, at least with some litle things (they didn't bothered to transte all or most textures)

You just had to read in this exact page xD