Re: Using freetranslation.mobi to translate .po files
[Clark C. Evans] 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. The most important argument is not this, but the fact that that there is no terms of service for http://freetranslation.mobi stating otherwise, make me assume this service is following the law and license of the texts it is given. If I ask a random person on the street to translate a GPLed text fragment, and the person give me a translated text fragment back, will the resulting text fragment still be GPLed? Assuming the text fragment was copyrightable in the first place, I believe it will be, as otherwise the translator would be said to violate the GPL and I fail to see what action involved could possibly violate the GPL. Instead of a random person, I hand it to http://freetranslation.mobi. You seem to claim that I would not get a GPLed text fragment back because the random person ask his friend for help with the translation, and there might exist a agreement between the random person and his friend that allow the friend to violate the GPL. I believe such agreements are irrelevant for me. If such agreement exist between the two, they would be the ones violating the GPL, not me, and we could sue them for GPL violatins if we wanted to. Did I misunderstand your argument? You also seem to assume that Google Translate is involved when http://freetranslation.mobi is translating text. I do not know if this is the case, and you have not presented anything making me believe you know this either. 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. Given that I do not intend to use Google Translate, I fail to see how contacting Google to ask about http://freetranslation.mobi is interesting. Just asking might be seen as slanter against http://freetranslation.mobi, as it involves claiming that http://freetranslation.mobi is breaking the copyright law. As I said above, I assume http://freetranslation.mobi follow the law until proven otherwise. -- Happy hacking Petter Reinholdtsen -- 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/20120325064944.ge...@login1.uio.no
Re: Using freetranslation.mobi to translate .po files
I am truly sorry I do not have the time to address the other points at this time, and I will try to do so as soon as I can (which is hopefully not earlier than two weeks from now). Either way, there is one point that is reasonably easy to comment on. I will do so now, if you will excuse me from the apparently selective argument. On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 09:23:39PM -0400, Clark C. Evans wrote: 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. Actually, regardless of intent, I reinforce the original premise that copyright protects the intellectual, creative work of an individual. That might indeed be an issue considering your other point (that someone necessarily arranged for a certain array of words to be combined at translation time, which would be considered creative translation work). However, I would say that is not a problem if your translating one word or very small expressions at a time, for the sole reason that the creative effort that materializes in a particular way of combining different words varying with the context would then be absent. Google thankfully cannot hold copyright for the dictionary meaning of words, so we could be protected if the service is used with caution. On second thought, the person engaging in software translation in Debian or anywhere else is expected (or so I hope) not to simply copy paste the translation, but to exercise judgment on the result etc. The difference starts to become a little fuzzy at this point, at least in my opinion, and we would only have a greater degree of certainty when backed up by case law of the jurisdiction relevant to each case, but I consider it fair to compare that more to the research of a translator which is creating material subject to his own copyright (in analysing the usual meanings of foreign words) than to a derivative work to the automated translation that whatever.mobi got from Google Translator. This - mainly the last paragraph - is much more brainstorming than anything else and shall not be relied upon as legal advice. Rebuttal is also very much welcome. Cheers, Guilherme Pastore gpast...@debian.org -- 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/20120325075150.ga9...@pastore.eng.br
