Fan translation refers to the unofficial translation of various forms of media by fans, usually into a language in which an official translated version is not available. These translations are distributed for free or at minimal cost. The rise of the Internet has enabled fan translators to collaborate and distribute their material more effectively, and has therefore led to a large increase in the amount of fan translated material. Fan translations almost always constitute copyright infringement.

Media

Fan translation of Final Fantasy III, a 1990 game popular in Japan that was not officially released in English-language until late 2006.

Notable areas of fan translation include:

• Fansub – translating and subtitling movies, television programs and other similar media. For many languages the most popular fan subtitling is of Hollywood movies and American TV dramas, while fansubs into English-language are largely of East Asian entertainment, particularly anime.

• Fan translation of video games – this practice grew with the rise of video game console emulation in the late 1990s and still mainly focuses on older classic games. These translations are typically distributed as patches that modify the binary files of the original game into new binaries.

• Scanlation – the distribution of fan translated comics, especially manga, as computer images which have been scanned and translated by fans. An alternative method of distributing fan-translated sequential art is to distribute only the translated text, requiring readers to purchase a copy of the work in the original language.

• Fan translation of written fiction, particularly short stories but sometimes including full novels.¹

References

1. ^ "Self-Organized Citizen Translations of Harry Potter 7", 26 July 2007 (English translation of original Chinese article from yWeekend)

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