On Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 09:38:58AM +0100, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote: > > intellectual property" does not mean that the creator of a derived work > > has exclusive control over that work to the same extent as over a > > completely original work. > He does not, but he does have rights that cannot be removed by the > original creator. Once the right to make a derived version has been > granted the copyright applies to the derived creation as a *new* creation. Then it seems that, at least as far as Spanish law is concerned, the only question is: was this translation authorized? > Note that "translation" implies "transformed work": > (...)esta última, sin perjuicio del derecho del > autor de la obra preexistente de autorizar, > durante todo el plazo de protección de sus > derechos sobre ésta, la explotación de > esos resultados en cualquier forma y en > especial mediante su reproducción, > distribución, comunicación pública o > nueva transformación. > So, as I read it. Once I translate a work, the only (copy)right that holds > the original author is to authorise or deny reproduction, distribution, > communication, etc. of the translation. If the author has authorised me to > create the *new* work (even if call derivative you can read that it's > considered new and copyrightable by itself) I can do whatever I want > *unless* he tells me that he does not want me to do one of the things > above (and he has to enforce that right, if he is silent, then I can do it > in any case). I must concede that this interpretation appears to be correct under Spanish law, though it's inconsistent with my understanding of US law. Still, I'm not sure how much that helps us at the international level, especially since the original work was copyrighted in a country other than Spain. One way or another, we need to have confirmation that the translation was authorized, and ideally, that the author(s) of the original work have signed off on the distribution of the translation under a DFSG-compliant license. Note that you've left open the possibility that our permission to distribute the documentation may be *revoked* by a third party at a later date, a problem which is not present in any DFSG-compliant license that I'm aware of. > I, on my behalf, will try to contact a spanish lawyer and get a say on > this. Believe, I've read the Intellectual Property law (all the way) for > more than a dozen times over the last four years. I've also done my work > on translations for the last five years including translations that were > copyrighted for spanish magazines. I would be interested to know the outcome of your discussions with a Spanish lawyer. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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