>Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 19:23:00 -0500
>Subject: [NTLK] OT: Kafka "Penal colony" - copyright and translations
>From: Jim Witte <jswitte_at_bloomington.in.us>
>
>
>> 2) wish there were translations of Kafka that are in the public domain
>> (there aren't).
>>
> Are there any lawyers here who know how copyright/public domain status
>interacts with translations? I would assume that while the original
>worl (in German) is PD, the translations aren't, but what exactly
>constitues "changeing it enough to warrent copyright?" A somewhat
>similar issue came up recently on the OpenOffice list, with regards to
>free/non-free status and word lists to use for a spell checker.
>
> Any German/English speakers out there who would be willing to
>translate Kafka and put it under OPL (Open Publishing License) - or
>something similar, if RMS has his fingers that pie as well, it probably
>comes with unwelcome strings...
>
>Jim
Jim,
you're right: it depends on the translator. Easy case are those
translations that already have "expired" copyright. A non-exhaustive list
of free translations can be found on Project Gutenberg
<http://www.gutenberg.net/>. Of course, they are only sorted by autor or
title, but there's for example quite a bit available, including Goethe in
English, or Gogol, or Voltaire, and many international authors of world
fame. Unfortunately nothing under "Kafka"; there just hasn't been anybody
who has taken the time to start a translation of his works from scratch.
Too bad. I really have neither the time nor inclination to try a new
translation of Kafka. Maybe a native English speaker with excellent
knowledge of German would be the way to go. Check the German Dept. of your
local university if someone's willing to do it...
But really: if you just want some text to read on you Newton, got to
Project Gutenberg, download the plain text file, and drop it on PaperBack
v.2.0 (which even allows you to create chapter headings); not the most
appealing layout, I admit, because you can't specify new pages, or center
text, or have different font sizes or styles, but you can change the font
of the entire document, though.
And for those who DO read German: Get your texts from Gutenberg DE
<http://gutenberg.aol.de/>. This is all free and in public domain (although
you need the extra step of converting the html pages to plain text
first...).
I myself, I'll probably create my next NewtonBooks only when I've figured
out how Bookmaker works for full-display NewtonBooks. I'm getting sick of
the crutches of creating books in different formats for different screen
sizes with NewtonPress. The other problem I just have to live with are
those mile-long German words that just don't "auto-hyphenate" at the end of
lines and thus leave these unsightly gaps in the middle of a paragraph
(Donaudampfschiffahrtskapit=E4nswitwenbeerdigungsg=E4ste) <- not that Kafka
would have written about those, but he uses quite a few compound words
nevertheless.
Otto
*****
Otto Sohn <http://newted.dyndns.org/users/osohn/>
NewTIL <http://newted.dyndns.org/users/osohn/NewTIL/>
NEWTtools <http://newted.dyndns.org/users/osohn/NEWTtools/>
*****
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