Copyrights and the internet

[Michael Trittipo]

At 11:30 1999/02/24 -0500, Jeffrey S. Eagen wrote:
>I'm interested if the posting of translations of text, especially your own
>translations, violates any copyright laws.  . . .  any legal procedures
one must go
>through in order to post texts on a personal webpage, original or in
translation.

You might want to get a copy of the January issue of the ATA Chronicle.  It
contains an abridged version of an article I wrote as a primer on U.S.
copyright law and translations, and presented at an ATA annual meeting a
couple of years back.

The bottom line is that the rights to make or to authorize the making of
translations of still-copyrighted works are in most countries among the
exclusive rights of the owner of copyright in the original.  So grosso
modo, the making (let alone distribution) of a translation of a copyrighted
work, without authorization from the proper copyright owner, is an
infringement for which one can be held liable (absent a defense such as
fair use).

There are exceptions in some countries that allow the making of
translations without authorization, if (for example) authorization is
requested and refused, and if the owner of the copyright in the original
doesn't get a translation by someone else on the relevant market in some
given time.  But except for a few wrinkles like that, the basic rule most
places is that one needs to be dealing with a public domain work (i.e., one
on which copyright protection has ceased), or else needs authorization, or
else needs to come within "fair use."  Public domain and authorization are
pretty clean cut to determine;  fair use is not.

Indeed, I didn't try to cover fair use in my article at all, except to list
the four explicitly mentioned statutory factors, note that they aren't
exclusive, and mention that fair use is a fact-intensive issue.  (I had
already cut the article to about half its original length, to fit the
magazine's space constraints.)  There is an FAQ on the web about copyright,
at http://www.aimnet.com/~carroll/copyright/faq-home.html.  It includes
links to other resources that may be of interest.

Michael Trittipo
(yes, I am a lawyer, but no, this isn't legal advice)
tritt002 at tc.umn.edu