In a message dated 4/26/2011 12:08:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
smolensk(a)eunet.rs writes:
Translation is not "sweat of the brow".
Copyright law of Germany, for
example, explicitly states that translations are copyrighted:
http://bundesrecht.juris.de/urhg/__3.html . Copyright law of Serbia, for
another example, does the same.
This doesn't exactly address the point.
A work is copyright, a translation enjoys that *same* copyright. It
doesn't create an additional independent copyright.
This was the situation when Harriet Beecher Stowe tried to sue for people
translating her work. That's why the US law changed IIRC.
A translation, under US law, as I understand it, is a derivative work, and
thus can be made, under the same copyright protection, but does not create
an additional copyright distinct from the original work.