On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 07:53:21 +0900, "Fabian" <lajzar@hotmail.com>
belched the alphabet and kept on going with:

>Bryce hu kiteb:
>
>> I think it's the work, not the language. You own the sweat and blood
>> that went into the work. But language? I think the translated version
>> has the same copyright protections.
>>
>> Any lawyers in here?
>
>I thought the work is their copyright, the translation is your
>copyright. However, they retain the rights to the work regardless of teh
>language. So while they can't do anything with your translation without
>your permission, equally, you can't do anything with the translation
>without their permission.
>
>A translation of something in the public domain is copyrightable. That
>is, that particular translation is. You culdn't prevent someone doing
>their own translation into the same language and copyrighting that. But
>taking PD stuff this way is an evil on a par with Disney.

There also exists a provision allowing for publishing (a word with a
very wide meaning when it comes to copyrights) translations of works
which are *not* in the public domain when the target language is some
obscure language spoken only by a tiny handful of people in some
blighted hellhole which literature and other aspects of modern
civilization have chosen to pass by without so much as a wave.