[Foundation-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Copyright concerns (was Wikipedia spanks Encarta, Brockhaus)

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Jens Ropers <ropers at ropersonline.com> wrote:
> Without sounding too much like a prick, reading the previous emails, 
> where someone (IIRC) tried to argue that a translation of an existing 
> text was an original work--
> 
> IT IS NOT!!!

Why not *read* those posts to find out? Who argued that? Certainly not me. 
 
> U.S., E.U. and international laws are '''quite''' clear on this point. 
> You absolutely CANNOT publish the translation of a copyrighted work w/o 
> the original author's consent!
> Please DO NOT go there.

A longish summary translation was created and I asked if the copyright on that
were cleared. SJ then deleted the summary stating that such a long paraphrase
was probably not fair use. I originally thought that it was a direct
translation, which most certainly would be a derivative work. But it was more
of loose paraphrase summary from what I gather - so it was not clear whether or
not it was OK. 

> I'm seeing _a lot_ of naivety lately, as regards copyright:

I just saw and responded to a post on the English Wikibooks Staff Lounge (their
version of the Village Pump) of a person who wanted to create a Portugese
textbook by translating a commercial one in English! God I hope nobody is doing
that type of thing. 
 
> 1. That's a '''problem''' for the submitter (because they--not the 
> Wikipedia--are legally fully liable for the text they are submitting to 
> the Wikipedia).

Yep - we need to make that more clear by having Wikimedia-wide official
submission standards enacted. A draft version is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Submission_Standards

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


		
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