Arguments about translators and translation

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Russell,

I wholeheartedly agree with what you say below.  Nearly all my previous
letters to the rights department at Random House have been attempts to get
them to be more easy-going, to be more willing to grant a licence, say, to
some small theatre or small magazine, promptly and just for a token sum, or
even gratis.

I think the continual extension of copyright duration is stultifying, for
the reasons you say.

Nevertheless, the way that Scottish Opera have behaved is insulting.

All the best,

Robert

> Protecting intellectual property is good and important, but I find it sad that
> translatability today is determined first of all by copyright, such that it
> would be impossible to recreate anything like the intense interchange of texts
> and languages in certain periods of literary history, with multiple
> translator-writers trying their hand at the same relatively contemporary
> works.

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