Why did DLSite make their own translation of this when there was already a fan translation available for ages?

[Shylaar]

Especially when the quality of DLSite's new translation is questionable, and it removed content. Why not reach out to the fan translator instead?
Source: https://vgy.me/JatZVZ.png
I won't link the thread itself as the site is associated with piracy.

[DLsite Official]

Thank you for your inquiry.
The answer in this case would be a simple: "We didn't know."

However, even had we known...
It is fairly likely that we would not have considered it as an option due to not wanting the DLsite name / brand to be associated with, as you have pointed out, piracy / pirates.

If someone wants to translate something; our official stance is...
"Great! Get their permission and make it an official thing."

Please note that under US law (where Steam is based) and also Japanese law (where we are based), unauthorized fan translation is a breach of the law and where the translation (derivative work) is made without the copyright owner's consent, all rights to that translation belong to the original work's copyright owner.

That is, the developer could legally have taken that fan translation, applied it to their game and placed it on Steam themselves. (With no reward for the fan translator)
* Basing this on the references below:

 2017 ver
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2017-title17/pdf/USCODE-2017-title17.pdf
------------------------------
A copyright owner has the exclusive rights to decide whether a translation of their work is to be made and who is authorized to carry it out.

§ 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
"Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;"
------------------------------
Any derivative work which is created without the above authorization (i.e. violates the exclusive rights of the copyright holder) does not gain copyright protection under the law.

§ 103. Subject matter of copyright: Compilations and derivative works
"(a) The subject matter of copyright as specified by section 102 includes compilations and derivative works, but protection for a work employing preexisting material in which copyright subsists does not extend to any part of the work in which such material has been used unlawfully.
(b) The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material."
------------------------------
It does not matter whether it is just a copy or an original derivative work. The perpetrator is in infringement of copyright.

§ 501. Infringement of copyright
"(a) Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be."
------------------------------
[Nimmer on Copyright § 3.01, p. 3-3]
“It is saved from being an infringing work only because the borrowed or copied material was taken with the consent of the copyright owner of the prior work...”
------------------------------


PS: If there is indeed any removed content, any decision to remove that content would have been made by the developer for some reason or another.

As far as we are aware,
RJ144613 (original Japanese game), 
RE240947 (English translated version) 
and 998220 (Steam version) + patch 
should all contain the same content.
If this is not the case, it may be a bug which needs reporting to the developer.
(Or it may be intentional, which would likewise, need questioning the developer as to why.)

[Shylaar]

The site that conversation itself was on might encourage piracy, but fan translators themselves often don't, and most often distribute their patches independently of the games while encouraging people to buy the games, as was done in this case. And it almost always results in a boost in sales for the fan translated work. Succubus Prison, for example, has gained 1381 purchases on the English DLSite following its translation patch, while Teaching Feeling and Monmusu Quest saw even greater success. Lulu Farea didn't end up as popular, for whatever reason, but while you might be right about a fan translation being a breach of copyright, that stance also shows a poor understanding of the western eroge scene and its significant history of and reliance on fan translations. It's quite common for official localisers of eroge to work with fan translators to use their patches in an official capcitiy, and MangaGamer, JAST, and Sekai Project all do this.

The image I linked notes the changed / removed content. Some of it seems intentional from the developer side, like the art changes, but other parts don't, like the missing quiz section and dialogue during the ending.

[DLsite Official]

We understand the significance of fan translations in the development and spread of Japanese Anime/Comic/Game culture throughout the world and also that we would not be where we are today without its presence. No doubt about it.

However, as a retailer with a legal and moral duty to protect the intellectual property of the creators that sell on our platform... Our official stance regarding unauthorized translations (derivative works) is that they are an infringement of the creator's intellectual property rights.

This is something that we must uphold to keep on good terms with those who supply the bread and butter of our trade.

All translations performed by DLsite are done with the explicit permission of the copyright holder. However, we often have a difficult time negotiating because...

Unfortunately, the association of the fan translation scene with piracy has led many creators to believe that releasing their game to foreign markets will cause increased piracy of their product and reduce their sales in Japan.

* We do not believe this to be the case at all and research seems to support likewise.
However, how a creator emotionally feels about the unauthorized handling of their cherished creation, their brainchild. The product of their blood, sweat and tears, of their hard work... Well, that is a different matter entire. Some don't care and some take it very very personally.

All we ask and hope for is that fan translators get permission to translate.
In the end, it's a matter of respect.

[Shylaar]

Fair enough. There's still the issue of that missing content though.

[DLsite Official]

Yes, we would really like to know more about this issue.

If you (or anyone) could inform us which parts are missing, we will contact the developer and ask them to investigate.

If unintended, we'll see about fixing things up.
If intended,, then hopefully we can get you an answer! :)

[Shylaar]

I already said that the image I linked in the first post notes the changes, but that's all the information I specifically have. I'll ask around and see if people can share more.

[Shylaar]

Alright, I was able to get a message from someone who compared the releases, and they provided me with a list of cut / altered content.

First of all, there were a few scenes cut out at the very end of the game.
After you beat the final boss and go to hang out with Luluu, Luufa, and Farea at their house, there were originally five scenes in the Japanese version.
1. Footjob from Luluu while Myuu provides lubrication
2. Sex with Luufa
3. Sex with Luluu in a school swimsuit while Luufa helps
4. Blow__job from Luufa and Farea
5. Sex with all three
In the Steam English version, scenes 1 and 3 are missing.

There's also a missing blow_job scene in area 5 with the key girl that you originally got by purchasing her services at every opportunity.

As for the rest of the cut content, all I can tell you is that nearly everything feels like it has been condensed.
Colatte's 2nd h-scene cut a date portion that used to be at the beginning of it.
Calmetia's 1st scene cut a segment at the beginning where she leaves to undress before they start having sex and she contemplates running away.
Konkon had an event where she traps Klurs in an illusion before fighting her which got cut.
The quiz is gone, which is kind of understandable because it didn't work well in English, but there was a pretty important bit of character development for Klurs right before it which is now absent from the English version.
In the Japanese version, whenever you bought an item, there was a short conversation between Klurs and Myuu. Those are all gone.

Several events have been completely simplified from a Point A to Point B type of thing with all the steps in-between removed. A couple examples:
The Mysterious Bracelet no longer has to be identified to determine that it's the Elf-Sealing Bracelet, the key item for defeating Violaine.
You had to find several hidden items to gain access to Calmetia's room in the living area, and then find Calmetia hidden at several places in the dungeon to get her 2nd h-scene.

You would have to play the games side-by-side for an exact list of what was changed, but I also had the distinct impression that all h-scenes had been shortened by removing portions of the dialogue.

This is obviouisly a lot more significant than I had thought.

[DLsite Official]

Thank you for the additional information.
We have sent an inquiry to the developer and should hopefully have an answer soon.

On our end, we opened up the original Japanese data and the English version data to make a quick comparison of the two. Provided below is a screenshot of the two compared.

http://support.dlsite.com/Steam/lulufarea/lulufarea_comparison1.jpg

By the looks of it, some content may be located in different places (or have different triggers).
As the game has been recreated using a different engine, if any content has been cut, it will likely have been intended. Nonetheless, let us wait for the developer's official statement.

[DLsite Official]

Provided below is the response we received from the developer:

----------------------------------------
"Regarding the differences between the Wolf Editor version and the RPG Tkool MV version.
- We edited, at our discretion, the the Japanese language quiz and other similar events where knowledge of Japan was a prerequisite to understanding the context.
- There were certain materials in the original game which could not be used in a foreign language release AND / OR in a different game engine.
- In order to improve the flow and pace of the game, we simplified parts of the game which did not effect the game balance and revised the relevant text.

One example from the Japanese language quiz is as follows:
"[Ririririririririri...] What kind of food is this?"
「くり」"Kuri" (chestnut) and 「きゅうり」"Kyuuri" (cucumber) are the wrong answers to this trick question and 「タイ料理（大量り）」"Tai Ryouri (TAIRYOUri)" (Thai Cuisine (Large Quantity -ri) is the correct answer.

Another example are conversations taking proper nouns from the real world which have no context outside of Japan (e.g. the title of a Japanese language only book).

These are some of the things we decided to cut or revised because we did not want to risk the incorrect nuance being conveyed to our players."
----------------------------------------

While I'm sure our translators could have come up with localized versions of these language / culture specific contexts, this was a design decision made by the developer in hopes of providing a better / less jarring? experience for their foreign customers.

As to the reason for porting from Wolf Editor to RPG Tkool MV in the first place.
We were informed that it was because textual display problems were occurring for the Chinese language version. However, given the above reply, it sounds like there may have been copyright issues with certain royalty free materials.

[Shylaar]

I think you should probably tell the developers that people prefer to have content adapted instead of cut entirely. And some of those cuts, particularly the removal of sex scenes entirely, which in both instances are of Luluu, seems to be because the developers think that loli characters count as "materials which could not be used in a foreign language release". Maybe you should also tell them that Maitetsu is officially available in English?

I have to say thanks for looking into it, but I can't possibly support their attitude of cutting down and sanitising the game for the western release.

[DLsite Official]

If we are ever bestowed the opportunity to work again with this developer and translate another of their works, we will surely make sure to mention this and confirm prior as to what, if any, changes have been made. Unfortunately, in this case, we were unaware that any cuts had been made to the scenario itself (we simply translated the Japanese script that was provided).

* We had been informed regarding the Wolf Editor > RPG Tkool MV porting though.

[DarkSpartan]

"Fool me once, I'm mad. Fool me twice, how could you. Fool me three times, you're officially that guy."

Is there any chance of them restoring at least all the scenes that the original version had? I'm really disappointed by that...

[DLsite Official]

We understand that this could be disappointing for those who have played the original game in Japanese and were expecting the exact same content. Unfortunately however, the only response we received regarding this issue was the above.

Please let us express that we are not an advocate for censorship (especially where it is not needed) and that in this case, the developer has mentioned copyright issues. Many Japanese indie game developers utilize materials from other sources (e.g. royalty free, free to use, public domain, licensed, etc.) and the original Japanese game is no exception.

We will convey your concerns to the developer (and keep this in mind for any future works), but they may very well be in the situation where they cannot add the content even if they wanted to.

[Shylaar]

Copyright issues would probably refer to sound effects and music they took from free use sources, not the original script and artwork they made for the game (and proceeded to remove from this English release).

[DarkSpartan]

It's hard to believe that they would have copyright issues with their own CGs...