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
