bizarre question

[kaigou]

but if anyone knows the answer, it'd be one of you. I'm sure of it.

There was a recent ruling in the US, I thought, as regards translations -- that the translator owns copyright. Is this true, and wouldn't that mean that if your translation is stolen and posted without your permission, you have essentially a kind of copyright holder's right to have it removed?

Just wondering how far that ruling (if I'm remembering it right) would carry.

Comments

[aldanise]

I think it would depend on how said translator started translating in the first place. Speaking from some work experience in Acquisitions, most publishing contracts (unless the author's both canny and determined to keep as many rights as possible) involve selling the publishing company "world rights, all languages", which means that the publisher gets control over translations.

There is a 1850-something US Supreme Court decision saying that a text translation is a completely new work that might complicate that; it's entirely possible publishers demand rights that the author can't give, but US copyright law has gotten steadily nastier since 1850, so I'd not be surprised if translators' rights have gotten slimmer. And often translations done at the behest of publishers are "work for hire" and the original-language author or the publisher owns the copyright.

Of course, if the original is public domain or the translator has bought the rights for the language, the translator definitely owns copyright.

tldr; It's complicated? Also, if you find that ruling, I would love a link to it.