Bansenshukai, Ninpiden, Shoninki

[Filip Poffe]

Dear all,

I read the following message on the Genbukan/KJJR discussion forum :

Dear Shibu and Dojo cho,
I was informed that Mr. Joseph Schwartz ,who seems to be
affiliated with the Bujinkan, is selling "full" translations of
the Bansenshukai, Ninpiden, and Shoninki. However, my
informer confirmed that all his translations are copies of
my translations, which are available free of charge on the
Tokyo Shibu website. Apart from being a criminal act under
copyrights law, it would be regretable if any of your
students paid for my translations.


It seems that Mr. Roy RON is very disappointed by this act and that Mr. Schwartz perhaps better gives some explanation ???

Sincerely Yours,

[Hoshi_Ryu]

No they are not copies. I bought a shoniki and it has 11 pages in it.
The one on the Genbukan site only has about 4 or 5 pages with words some words interpreted differently.

[Yanosuke]

Thats right !!

[John Lindsey]

I will be contacting Mr. Schwartz to investigate this matter. I will also contact Roy Ron today. BTW, just because a few words may be different, it doesn't rule out that they were changed from Roy's edition. BUT, Joseph is innocent until proven guilty please. I have no facts on this matter yet...

[Karyu]

A lot of what Nagoya Antiques sells is translated into romanji, not english.

Seeing as they were both translated from the same sources, unless it's word for word you would have a very hard time proving that Mr. Schwartz' translation is a copy of Roy Ron's. Please remember most of these densho have been translated into modern japanese making an english translation rather easy. It's very possible for two translations to be quite similar despite the authors never having read the other.

As far as I know the original densho are public domain, so Mr. Schwartz hasn't broken any copyright laws PROVIDED he didn't copy Mr. Ron's translation verbatim, if he even copied it at all. A good example is the dozens of versions of The Art of War on the market, all of which say more or less the same thing.

[John Lindsey]

I have copies of emails from people who have bought the translation and who alerted Roy Ron about the matter. The investigation continues. Of course, we have yet to hear from Mr. Schwartz on this matter.

[Hoshi_Ryu]

No what I am saying is that Joseph Swartz's partial shoniki english translated has MORE written pages that Roy Ron's shoniki. Joseph has about 5 more pages that Roy does not have. Therefore if Joseph had this business earlier, then Roy Ron would be accused of copying from Joseph Swartz.
Its just a misconception.

[josephcswartz]

Konban wa,

This will be my only post on this topic. As I was browsing through e-budo I came upon this topic and have read all the posts. I am really saddened and disapointed with some people. I have been involved in the martial arts for about 11 years now and have lived in japan. After this amount of time I felt I wanted to give something back to the martial arts community. To this end I felt I could best do this by applying my linguistics ability to translating japanese martial arts documents and making them available to other people. Between myself and the other translators that I know we can accomplish a fair amount. I have translated a number of documents over the years. I only rely on translations that have been done by myself and have no need to use translations done by other people. I do not know other peoples ability so they might translate a kanji wrongly or interpret the context differently than me.

Translations that I have done have been Bugei Ryuha Daijiten (all ninjutsu related entries) into English. This took about 1 1/2 years and was available free from my website for 1 year. I am currently preparing this translation to be bound, printed on some good paper and sold. I have a partial copy of the Bansenshukai in English. This is in my personal collection however and I have never sold a single copy. I did have plans to complete a full translation in english however I have heard that the curator of the museum in japan where a copy is located is already working on this project so I see no reason to do so. I have a full translation in romanji of the Tendai Mikkyo Sutra which is available. I spent 6 weeks on a partial english translation of the shoninki which is available. This differs greatly from present available versions. I have a beautiful romanji and kanji translation/handcopy of the Ninpiden. I believe it to be my best work yet. I have many more translations and more in the works. Some public some for my personal collection.

These books some of which are 400+ years old, are in the public domain. Anyone can purchase these books replicas and translate them themselves. Everyone is using similar source material, so to that extent any translations would be similar, however the ways in which you can interpret old kanji to modern english is almost uncountable. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.

It is unclear to me if Mr. Filip Poffe was just copying and pasting an entry on a message board or was posting it once there and once here as the original poster. I have attempted to find the mentioned post but have been unable to do so. If someone knows of that location feel free to post a copy of this there.

Unfortunately it seems Mr. Filip Poffe or the OP incredibly, got every' single' thing' wrong in his post. I am not affiliated with any organization, I do not sell full copies of Bansenshukai, Shoninki, or Ninpiden. How any person can confirm the purchase/accuse one of copyright violations, of texts I don't have nor sell is beyond me.... Even my name is spelled wrong. Once again, this will be my only post on this topic and I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.

Best Wishes,
Joseph Swartz

[Filip Poffe]

Dear Mr. Swartz,

I have read the original topic, written by Mr. Roy RON (Genbukan Shihan), on the Genbukan Dojo-Cho only forum (Tanemura Sensei's website). Don't shoot the messenger, I did not write the content of his message. Because Mr. RON wanted more information he asked my help to publish something here. If you would like to discuss something in private with him, you can do via ninpo@ninpo.org ! It seems that Mr. Roy RON was informed by other people that a copyright violation was going on. My original message on e-Budo was edited by John Lindsey.

Sincerely Yours,

[Asia]

Hello Joseph.


I've done business with Joseph before, mainly through ebay. And have sent others his way. At least on the Shoniki I can also back what has been said. I have both copies and the one form Joseph is much longer. I also have the printed book and the first part is in modern Japanese with explinations so a translation can be done quite easily.