Quote:
Originally Posted by pilotbob
Immoral? Actually derivative works is part of the whole point of public domain. For example, there is a book on Amazon I have been meaning to read. _Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles_.
Heck, the whole open source movement was based on this. Look at the Mac OS X. It is based on the free bsd operating system. Ubuntu builds on the work of Linux and Debian. You could consider these "translations" of the previous work. Red Hat runs a whole company servicing open source software.
BOb
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I don't think so.
Derivative work like you described is not a translation.
"SH was wrong" is definitely a new idea based on a previous work. OTOH a French version of "The Hound of the Baskerville" is nothing new. Just Doyle's idea brought to France (or Senegal).
In the OS example, my version of BSD, where the word "
folder" is replaced by "
cartella" is not the same thing than OSX.
Not even close to it. Apple developers did something more than "translate" BSD in Italian. The had a few ideas on their own.
Sherlock Holmes translator didn't. He just made his best effort to express EXACTLY what Conan Doyle said in a foreign language.
That effort has to be rewarded, of course. But IMO not copyrighted.
And from what I remember from my catechism to put copyright on Gospel is very very close to simony.
Or, from another POV, God should have eternal copyright on it in every language of the past, present and future.
For the atheists, it means no copyright at all.
So, my point is:
OK to copyright new works (for a shorter time span than now)
OK to give to the original authors copyright for translations (no longer than the original, though)
OK to pay translators billions per page (nobody will say I want it for free, I hope)
OK to copyright comments, reviews, critics and exegesis of PD works
NO copyright on translations of PD works.
NO copyright for mere translators.