Publishing/Translation Question for the group

[Mekugi]

Hullo!

I was recently involved in a discussion with lawyer friend of mine that happens to do business with my company regarding copyright and translation rights as an International law.

I was discussing with him the liability of this situation:

For instance you translate and publish the work of an author into a different language and print it. Afterwards, you decide to inform the author about what you have done, then buy the printing rights to their book.

After a long and arduous discussion over beer, and listening to all the details, he told me this (not this is summarized):

Someone willingly translating another persons copyrighted property and then going about publishing it without a written permission of the author (or Publisher in many cases), has in fact violated international copyright laws regardless of the agreement the persons have reached afterwards.


I thought this was rather interesting. Anyone care to touch on this?

[Bushi Jon]

Yes this is true even though after the fact permission was giving during the publishing it was still the material of the writer. So lets say the writer or publishing house decided it should only be sold in one lang you in theory would have to destroy those copies

[keithpenner]

Definitely a violation of copyright laws. No question.

The Berne Convention covers international copyright, and 150+ countries are signatories, including the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Russia...

Translating a work, in and of itself, is probably not a violation of copyright. Publishing it certainly violates laws, and the copyright holder (not necessarily the author) is under no obligation to come to a contractual agreement with the translator/publisher.

If a work has international potential, it is not unusual for foreign rights to be sold in blocks, so different entities may hold the US rights, English speaking European/Australian rights, other European, Asian, whatever.

[Brian Owens]

Originally posted by Mekugi
For instance you translate and publish the work of an author into a different language and print it. Afterwards, you decide to inform the author about what you have done, then buy the printing rights to their book.

You should ask FIRST, then print. Translating for your own use is not a violation, but if you make more than one copy it would be.

An ex post facto agreement could be deemed null and void should the original copyright holder change his mind and wish to sue for violation of his copyright.

[Vapour]

Yes, but in civil law, unless victim(s) (author/publisher) complains, you don't get into trouble. So if you manage to make a deal with author/publisher, it' not big deal IMO.