Re: Using freetranslation.mobi to translate .po files
[Clark C. Evans]
> It seems Petter is arguing that he might be able to "work around"
> the copyright law by only translating a small piece at a time and
> then assembling the translated pieces.
Since I didn't see any emphatic 'no' to this, and I somewhat recently
got this particular type of case explained by a lawyer (one of which, I'm
not), I feel the need to chime in.
This is not a workaround. It is simply repeating the procedure to translate
everything. The amount put together in the end is the amount you look
at. We covered this in one of my college courses last semester, since
one student quoted every other line or so, from another paper. The
student was taken from class and rumor is expelled for plagiarism. A
complaint by another student brought into class one of the school
lawyers, and we got a Q&A session, which I took advantage of.
The way it was explained (pertinent to United States law) is that Fair Use
does allow small parts to be used. If you use many small parts, then
the amount considered is the sum, not the size of each piece.
To compare this to programming, Fair Use dictates I could technically
open up any source code and borrow a line (so long as its not under a
patent) for use in another program. The 'workaround' says I should be
able to copy and paste each line individually, then put them back in
the right order and call it mine, to license as I see fit... after all I only
copied a single line under Fair Use, just many times, right? Wrong, the
totality is considered, and you violate Fair Use since the sum of work
is what is taken into account. Upon violating Fair Use, you put yourself
in violation of licenses, laws, and so on and so forth.
Regarding Fair Use and international law, I'm in the dark, however I
am fairly certain that most Fair Use laws in sane localities would
take into account the sum of work, rather than chunk size.
--
-Felyza
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