Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
How would you like to see it work then, FC?
Suppose I spend 5 years of my life converting "War and Peace" from Russian into English. Do you think that I don't have any right to sell that work commercially, and that everyone should be able to instantly copy it freely?
You have to accept the fact that if you want to see ANY translations of public domain works, nobody's going to do it without being able to get a reasonable "pay back" for their work.
What would your suggestion be?
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Business come from added value.
If you put a good amount of "extras" in your work (under copyright), you'll get your payback and your copyright.
Last year I bought a copy of the "Divine Comedy" for 175€ (more than I spent for the Sony reader). And it's PD. And it wasn't even a translation.
I can copy Dante's verses from it and sell them on my own.
But I cannot copy and spread the footnotes, the comments and all the rest.
Now, imagine I'm a big Publisher.
You spent 5 years translating.
My printer and paper producers spent the same amount of time studying the best hardcover edition you can imagine.
Now I give you what I think is a fair amount for your translation, I pay the corrector, the printer, and even the taxi driver who brought you here.
I then sell that book to special edition collectors for what my sales dept thinks is a good price.
Everybody got paid, except me if the book does not sell (and that's why I got the highest percentage).
But nor you, nor the taxi driver, albeit both of you worked on it, should claim Intellectual Property on Tolstoy's ideas.
