On Mon, Mar 12, 2012, at 02:09 PM, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote: > Now Petter had the idea to feed this into google translations, > using http://freetranslation.mobi and committed the result > back into the debian-edu-doc svn repository.
I don't think you can do this. #1 Translations are copyrightable. Small translations may be non-copyrightable or fair use, but from what I understand, we're talking about the translation of a whole manual. #2 Copyright is automatic, not something you need to claim. Hence, those who produce the translation hold the copyrights to this material. You need permission of the original copyright holder to authorize the translation and the permission of the translator to license their work back under the GPL. #3 FreeTranslation doesn't have a legal notice that puts their translations into the public domain or under the GPL; Google's terms of service explicitly reserves copyright for any "content you may access" and does not grant a license for its use. Hence, the output of the translation process is *not* licensed under the GPL 2+ as one would need to commit it back. #4 FreeTranslation doesn't have a terms of service; Google's terms assume the right to publicly distribute derivative works under terms incompatible with the GPL. Hence, use of this service with GPL'd material may be both a violation of the original author's license and also Google's terms of service (since you lack the the ability to license the original work as Google requires). It seems Petter is arguing that he might be able to "work around" the copyright law by only translating a small piece at a time and then assembling the translated pieces. I'm skeptical of this logic, since it doesn't consider the intent of the effort and the work as a whole. Phrases in a creative composition such as a manual arn't a set of independent facts that can be treated individually. The other argument is that the translation service is fully automated and hence there is no expressive creativity in the translations. I think this is a false assumption, the service itself required creativity to implement, and the specific choice of word associations in specific contexts is not algorithmic nor factual, but individual calls by translation submitters who have granted the translation service license to use their work. I suggest that the developer may want to *contact* Google tell them what you wish. They may be willing to accept the input under the terms of the GPL and produce output under those same terms. Especially if the output is reviewed and alternative, corrective phrase translations submitted back to Google under terms which they could use to improve their translation service. I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice. Clark -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1332638619.18646.140661053646433.4b832...@webmail.messagingengine.com
