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Harry Potter in German, not Czech

Posted by jamie on from the foreign-key dept.

The official translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix into German is scheduled to hit shelves on November 8. But at the Harry auf deutsch site (here's Google's English), a community has sprung up to perform a distributed translation. Every volunteer works on five pages, with the aid of a Potter-specific dictionary, and after turning in a German version, works on the prose to ensure it reads smoothly. In an unrelated effort, some schoolboys who did a Czech translation and posted it to a private website have been sued by Albatros, the Czech publishing house who will have the official translation out in February. Looks like Harry is crushing more than the Hulk.

Oh, and please don't post spoilers, it's still too early :)

3 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Censorship???!!?? by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Could jamie please explain why this is censorship? What the hell gives you the right to translate a book (for which the local editor has paid a pretty high price) and distributing it without caring for royalties and profit loss for all parties involved? Is anyone by any chance prohibiting these fine Czech and German people from buying the book in English and reading it at their leisure? Or has the state censored the book to remove parts of the it?

    Write your own book, make it freeware and be happy. Harry Potter is not freeware, it is protected by copyright laws and international contracts for localisation / translation. It is, in the least, stupid, to be advocating what is, indeed, piracy.

    --
    Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
  2. Re:Good business/Bad business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    suing your fanbase isn't the smartest or most polite thing to do

    Neither is stealing from your favorite author.

  3. Re:Whats the bet... by aziraphale · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, your somewhat bizarre German aside (the occasional english word in there makes me think you might have used BabelFish to generate this text), you're actually providing the best argument against the (thankfully relatively few) slashdotters on this thread who think that there's nothing wrong with a community-led translation of a book. It is possible for somebody, in translating a book, to add or change material substantially. In distributing their translation of the Harry Potter book, this group would be claiming that their translation was a faithful reproduction of J.K. Rowling's original work - but if they had added or altered material in the process (even to the extent of adding pornographic material, as you so amusingly suggest...), they could be doing Ms Rowling something of a disservice in the eyes of Germans who read that translation.

    This is why copyright protects an author's right over derivative works, including translations - it should be up to the author/publisher to select who is allowed to make the official translation, giving them some means to control what is put out in the author's name in other languages.