If it differs substantially, then its not a translation, it is a new work
Yes, very astute. That's the point exactly. While I'm thinking about it, you still have problems with trademarks, which is perhaps one reason why novellists are becoming keen on branding and trademarking their creations. I know I am.
Derivative works require permission of the copyright holder, at least under Anglo-American copyright law
Sorry, but I don't believe that to be the case for a derivative work that contains a significant amount of original work, e.g. a translation, or curiously a spoken word recording (you need to pay for "performance rights", but then you have sole copyright on the result).
The problem (as per bloody usual) is that the definition of "significant" is nebulous and very dependent on what the mythical average person would find reasonable, which is why cases like this often result in a lot of money being paid to lawyers - to whom the concept of "original work" is generally anathema, ironically enough.
However, I'm keen to be corrected. Got a reference? Otherwise it's just my word against yours, which doesn't help the gallery much.;-)
I'd like to alpha blend a few things though: winamp comes to mind, perhaps some kind of clock
That's a good point, and one I hadn't thought of (before it got posted 10,000 times here). The example screenshot really doesn't do the technology any favours.;-)
In anticipation of the site being/.'d, or you lot being too lazy to read it, a few quotes:
More than 10 percent -- possibly as many as 15 percent -- of the desktop computers sold in China this year will come pre-loaded with Linux [...] In a nation that is paying somewhat more attention to anti-piracy campaigns, PC vendors have more incentive to sell legal systems. [...]
But she and Liu agree that most of the pre-loaded Linux computers don't stay in that condition once buyers take them home or to the office. It's only slightly more difficult than it used to be to buy an inexpensive, unauthorized copy of Windows, which tends to make its way onto many of the hard disks that housed Linux when they left the store.
This is very pragmatic stuff. The basic message is that users want Windows, and vendors will give then Linux only if they have to for budget reasons. But the important point is the 10-15% figure, and the following:
Red Flag's Liu thinks even this is progress. If end users even touch Linux briefly, he argues, some of them will stick with it. [...] Sun Microsystems will soon release [Star Office 6.0] localized for the Chinese character set [that] will sufficiently close the gap with Microsoft Office
Bingo. If you haven't tried the Star Office 6 beta, try it now. It's the killer app. For Harry Homeowner or Cathy Cubeville, a KDE/Gnome/GNU/Linux distro with Star Office 6 will do everything they need, for a fraction of the (retail) cost of a Microsoft solution. And if it's pre-loaded, why would you pay even a few dollars extra to replace that with a pirated Redmond solution?
I say this not as a long time Linux afficionado, but as a recent convert. Red Hat 6.2 and Star Office 5.2 came off my drive after a week, but SuSE 7.3 and Star Office 6 beta 3 do everything that I need. There's no way I'd pay £444 (UK retail prices) for WinXP + Word 2002, but I will pay £60 for boxed sets of SuSE + Star Office (assuming 6.0 ships for the same price as 5.2).
And maybe that's the point in China too. You can afford to bundle real versions of non-M$ software, but the M$ stuff is just too damn expensive. The choice for OEM's and purchasers is to use open source, or to pirate Microsoft. Right now, many of them are still choosing the latter, but at least they're being given the choice. I really think that when Star Office 6.0 ships, they'll find to their surprise that there's just no need to do that any more.
Am I the only one thinking that this is a big old mess? I can just about make out what windows appear to be on top of each other (I think), but is it really a big whoop to have your desktop background smeared all over your word processor?
Suggestions as to who would find this useful will be gratefully received. If this appeared on my desktop, the first thing I'd be looking for is the (translucent) button to turn the damn thing off.
The open community ought to dedicate itself to creating something original,
Look over at sourceforge and you'll find pots of games. Most of them die before they flower. I'd suggest it's because the developers would rather work on a clone of something that they already know that they'll like. Sad, but perhaps if that's what open source is good at, maybe that's what we "should" keep doing rather than creating a lot of still born half implemented ideas.
On the other hand... have a look at Netrek. That borrowed the names and some gfx/sfx from Star Trek, but the idea and implementation was truly original. In fact, commercial games can learn a lot from looking at the Netrek client/server model, and a good game of Netrek is still more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.
Sorry, I posted hastily. If you produce a translation that differs substantially from the copyright holder's translation, then yes, it's an original work, and you can sell it. You might have to prove that it's substantially different in court, but if you can demonstrate that, then you're OK.
This doesn't happen very often with print, only generally for academic works, poetry and plays, but there's no reason why it can't, if you can persuade one publisher to step on another's toes.
The trouble here is that there's no authorised version to compare it to, so it's rather dangling in a void. Have a look for my other comment in here which has links to two stories about Harry Potter translations, one of which was allowed to stay on the web by a court.
I know of two unofficial fan translations of Harry Potter books into German. This high quality, multi contributor one was torpedoed before completion. However, this one man effort hit the web early, and was allowed to stay up by a court because it was inferior to the official translation.
And there's the problem. A translation can be treated as a derivative work with enough original content to protect it under copyright laws. It doesn't have to be worse, it can be better - it just has to be different. However, if the copyright holder (in another language) has not yet done a translation, it becomes problematical to prove that your translation is substantially different.
As this is a civil case, it'll come down to a judge deciding what is (here comes that word again) a reasonable delay of the official version before translators can take a shot at it. A three month delay is probably reasonable, a three year one probably unreasonable, but it will be decided on a case by case basis (at least in the UK, I'd be interested to hear if there's a specification of duration in Germany)
So, if the translators waited for the official CivIII German version to come out, then produced their own resource files that differed from the official ones, that would be allowed. But they can't force the copyright owners to hurry up.
don't necessarily jump on infogames case, because they didn't initiate the cease and decist...
If you know that, please let us know how, because that's not what the blurb here says:
Kai informed Infogrames of his effort and even offered to join forces with their localization team if only the game would be released sooner. Sadly, Infogrames reacted by sending Kai a cease and desist letter
Translations are derivative works. There is a specific exemption for these in most countries, Germany included, and this appears to be a straight substitution of text files.
Mind you, this didn't stop the German fans translating Harry Potter being served with cease and desists, so I guess we're back to the old argument that access to lawyers allows you to (practically) dictate what the law is.
"We choose to go to the moon, and to do these other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Cynical old bastard that I am, those words actually choke me up every time I hear them. Space exploration (not arsing about in low earth orbit) exemplifies everything that is great about the human spirit. Our reach should exceed our grasp.
We in the west have forgotten that, and now it's all about the bottom line. Sounds like China still gets it. Good luck to them, I reckon.
God damn! A million dollars in recording costs? Half a million in marketing? Quarter of a million advance, most of which goes to management, lawyers and recording studios?
Bah. We've ended up at these insane levels of cost through a conscious choice to make products instead of music. And it's the big labels (that we're asked to pity) that have chosen to do this. That's why they're the Big Labels, you see?
Smaller labels and artists (and authors and print publishers) can make a good living by selling actual art without million dollar videos and marketing campaigns.
Here's a synopsis of this article: big studios have big costs. Well, duh.
I have never watched Babylon 5, for the sole reason that I would like to watch it from start to finish in the correct order
I hear you. I caught about half of it on its first airing, but that's still not enough to let me dip in to individual re-runs.
But it can be done. Farscape and Stargate SG-1 both have continuity in the sense of internal consistency, continuing plots and a strong story, but they aren't dominated by it. Each episode can be viewed as a standalone mini-movie. B5 also has some splendid one-off episodes, but suffers from having too many episodes that are almost entirely plot and character development.
I can appreciate why it did this, but bearing in mind the compromises that were made to get series 5 on the air, it was effort that was (I think) ultimately wasted. Earth: Final Conflict has just gone down a similar road, and here goes Andromeda as well.
It would be nice to see more SF series that start as cheesy and episodic tits-and-ass fests aimed at the lowest common denominator, and then once they've got the ratings, develop into something richer. Enterprise has certainly started the right way to do that.;-)
To the extent that utterly predictable and stereotypical portrayal of flat, anodyne, uninvolving characters is "well acted", I agree. Similarly, I appreciate the skill that goes into the selection and production of Muzak, but I don't have to want to listen to the awful stuff.
Al Barakaat's founder, Shaykh Ahme Nur Jimale, is closely linked to
Usama bin Laden.
If we believe this, we're right to take action. But direct action. Punishing the company and the country for the actions of one man is rank hypocrisy. For all our vaunted military might and intelligence, we do seem to have a real problem when it comes to putting a bullet in the brain of the real bad guys.
So it's come to this again. Because we need or want to get rid of some controlling individuals, but won't go in and do it directly, we apply larger scale sanctions that mostly hurt the people that rely on them. Although this is really small scale stuff compared to Iraq and, what's that other place... oh yeah, Cuba.
I know, I know, it's up to the the locals to clean their own house, but I have to question our record on applying and lifting sanctions. Here we are cosying up with communist China, and one faction in Afghanistan, and yet we still sanction communist Cuba and Iraq and are bombing the crap out of our ex best buddies in Afghanistan, racking up civilian casualties among the populations we profess to want to liberate, while not being willing to take the media hit of spending the life of one US serviceman (volunteers all) to get the guy we originally went in after.
It would be nice if just for once, we could say "Here is a list of the bad guys. We are going to get them, but we will go after them, and only them, and will lose US servicemen in preference to killing civilians and discounting their lives as 'collateral damage'" Then without any ceremony or fanfare or spin doctoring, we sit and wait for six weeks until they've got complacent and cocky, then quietly blow the fuckers' brains out in dark alleyways.
This is tough on Somalia, but Somalians can at least count themselves lucky that they're not Iraqis or Cubas. God damn, I hate the hypocrisy of politicians.
I'll be excited when one of these test-tubes can [...] send me instant messages telling me what website i can see AVIs of Britney Spears being ravaged by high school football players at.
Jeez, any of the Kazaa clients will get you that.
I agree though.
"it could form the basis of a DNA computer in the future that could potentially operate within human cells and act as a monitoring device to detect potentially disease-causing changes and synthesise drugs to fix them"
Whoa there! When I go to a doctor today with generic symptoms, I'm advised to wait a month and see if I get better by myself. Let's work on basic diagnosis techniques first before we start blueskying about nanobots turning us into immortal super beings, huh?
the only beneficiaries of such a system [truly open licenses] would be those who want to take the work of the community and make it exclusively their own
Yes, I remember clearly the day when Microsoft stole the BSD code, and it vanished from the hard drives of the BSD developers in the world. Oh, how they wept, cursing themselves for not realising that an open license meant that their work could be taken from them so easily, and the fruits of their labour denied to them.
But fortunately we have learned from that, and are now wiser and more cynical. Now there are no truly open or acknowledgement-ware licenses to be found.
Tell me, is this the world you live in?
GPL is one answer. It's far from being the only one.
Twaddle. He used to, but this essay reads like a piece of trivialised spin doctoring. Look, consider Microsoft. They are clearly Evil. And I am opposed to them. It stands to reason that I am Good. And so the GPL is not merely a necessity, it is empowering, it enhances freedom, it whitens teeth.
RMS is a visionary, but I fear he's lost the plot, and he's now more interested in advocating the GPL as a political statement than as a practical tool.
OSS is going to have to do what M$ does, and that is buy into the government through a lobbying system
GNU has already started aping Microsoft and the governments' leads in a few areas. This essay reads like a spin doctor statement. It wields the word "freedom" like a weapon, until it's sucked all meaning from it.
It follows the same reasoning Dubya has been using: Look, clearly the Taliban are the Bad Guys. We are opposed to them. That has to make us the Good Guys. There is no third option; remember your Saturday Serials. As the Good Guys, you don't get to question any of our actions or motives in any area or in any context.
Kuhn and Stallman slip into that kind of rhetoric here. Microsoft are Bad. We're not Microsoft. So we must be Good, so don't question our assertion that the GPL is the only way to achieve freedom. Don't, whatever you do, ask us to define what we mean by freedom, and who we are applying it to, in one short sentence.
I really respect Stallman's work, but I feel like he's losing the plot and becoming obsessed with pushing an unncessarily muddy meaded and nebulous philosophy. I'd far prefer him just to be honest and pragmatic about the GPL, and say it plain and clear: it's my way or the highway.
... is that review, given there's a link to "find the lowest prices on an X-Box" at the bottom of the page?
You're saying that publications shouldn't do articles on anything that they carry advertising for? Adverts that will be aimed at their readership.
Would you prefer that tech sites only carry adverts for Polly Pockets dolls? So that they never get a click through and go under?
Silly hobbit. It's a fine article that covers both plusses and minuses and doesn't overly advocate purchasing an Xbox. If you're going to read an advertising supported publication (which you just did) you really can't ask for more than that.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, very astute. That's the point exactly. While I'm thinking about it, you still have problems with trademarks, which is perhaps one reason why novellists are becoming keen on branding and trademarking their creations. I know I am.
Sorry, but I don't believe that to be the case for a derivative work that contains a significant amount of original work, e.g. a translation, or curiously a spoken word recording (you need to pay for "performance rights", but then you have sole copyright on the result).
The problem (as per bloody usual) is that the definition of "significant" is nebulous and very dependent on what the mythical average person would find reasonable, which is why cases like this often result in a lot of money being paid to lawyers - to whom the concept of "original work" is generally anathema, ironically enough.
However, I'm keen to be corrected. Got a reference? Otherwise it's just my word against yours, which doesn't help the gallery much. ;-)
That's a good point, and one I hadn't thought of (before it got posted 10,000 times here). The example screenshot really doesn't do the technology any favours. ;-)
You can have animated backgrounds in Windows now? Suddenly I feel relieved that my employer is too cheap to upgrade my WinNT 4.0 box. ;-)
In anticipation of the site being /.'d, or you lot being too lazy to read it, a few quotes:
This is very pragmatic stuff. The basic message is that users want Windows, and vendors will give then Linux only if they have to for budget reasons. But the important point is the 10-15% figure, and the following:
Bingo. If you haven't tried the Star Office 6 beta, try it now. It's the killer app. For Harry Homeowner or Cathy Cubeville, a KDE/Gnome/GNU/Linux distro with Star Office 6 will do everything they need, for a fraction of the (retail) cost of a Microsoft solution. And if it's pre-loaded, why would you pay even a few dollars extra to replace that with a pirated Redmond solution?
I say this not as a long time Linux afficionado, but as a recent convert. Red Hat 6.2 and Star Office 5.2 came off my drive after a week, but SuSE 7.3 and Star Office 6 beta 3 do everything that I need. There's no way I'd pay £444 (UK retail prices) for WinXP + Word 2002, but I will pay £60 for boxed sets of SuSE + Star Office (assuming 6.0 ships for the same price as 5.2).
And maybe that's the point in China too. You can afford to bundle real versions of non-M$ software, but the M$ stuff is just too damn expensive. The choice for OEM's and purchasers is to use open source, or to pirate Microsoft. Right now, many of them are still choosing the latter, but at least they're being given the choice. I really think that when Star Office 6.0 ships, they'll find to their surprise that there's just no need to do that any more.
Am I the only one thinking that this is a big old mess? I can just about make out what windows appear to be on top of each other (I think), but is it really a big whoop to have your desktop background smeared all over your word processor?
Suggestions as to who would find this useful will be gratefully received. If this appeared on my desktop, the first thing I'd be looking for is the (translucent) button to turn the damn thing off.
Look over at sourceforge and you'll find pots of games. Most of them die before they flower. I'd suggest it's because the developers would rather work on a clone of something that they already know that they'll like. Sad, but perhaps if that's what open source is good at, maybe that's what we "should" keep doing rather than creating a lot of still born half implemented ideas.
On the other hand... have a look at Netrek. That borrowed the names and some gfx/sfx from Star Trek, but the idea and implementation was truly original. In fact, commercial games can learn a lot from looking at the Netrek client/server model, and a good game of Netrek is still more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.
You bastard! I thought I was doing great when I finally won - then I realised there was a level 2... Can I sue to to get my life back?
Sorry, I posted hastily. If you produce a translation that differs substantially from the copyright holder's translation, then yes, it's an original work, and you can sell it. You might have to prove that it's substantially different in court, but if you can demonstrate that, then you're OK.
This doesn't happen very often with print, only generally for academic works, poetry and plays, but there's no reason why it can't, if you can persuade one publisher to step on another's toes.
The trouble here is that there's no authorised version to compare it to, so it's rather dangling in a void. Have a look for my other comment in here which has links to two stories about Harry Potter translations, one of which was allowed to stay on the web by a court.
I know of two unofficial fan translations of Harry Potter books into German. This high quality, multi contributor one was torpedoed before completion. However, this one man effort hit the web early, and was allowed to stay up by a court because it was inferior to the official translation.
And there's the problem. A translation can be treated as a derivative work with enough original content to protect it under copyright laws. It doesn't have to be worse, it can be better - it just has to be different. However, if the copyright holder (in another language) has not yet done a translation, it becomes problematical to prove that your translation is substantially different.
As this is a civil case, it'll come down to a judge deciding what is (here comes that word again) a reasonable delay of the official version before translators can take a shot at it. A three month delay is probably reasonable, a three year one probably unreasonable, but it will be decided on a case by case basis (at least in the UK, I'd be interested to hear if there's a specification of duration in Germany)
So, if the translators waited for the official CivIII German version to come out, then produced their own resource files that differed from the official ones, that would be allowed. But they can't force the copyright owners to hurry up.
What a tangled web we weave.
If you know that, please let us know how, because that's not what the blurb here says:
Translations are derivative works. There is a specific exemption for these in most countries, Germany included, and this appears to be a straight substitution of text files.
Mind you, this didn't stop the German fans translating Harry Potter being served with cease and desists, so I guess we're back to the old argument that access to lawyers allows you to (practically) dictate what the law is.
How well does this translate into Mandarin?:
"We choose to go to the moon, and to do these other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Cynical old bastard that I am, those words actually choke me up every time I hear them. Space exploration (not arsing about in low earth orbit) exemplifies everything that is great about the human spirit. Our reach should exceed our grasp.
We in the west have forgotten that, and now it's all about the bottom line. Sounds like China still gets it. Good luck to them, I reckon.
God damn! A million dollars in recording costs? Half a million in marketing? Quarter of a million advance, most of which goes to management, lawyers and recording studios?
Bah. We've ended up at these insane levels of cost through a conscious choice to make products instead of music. And it's the big labels (that we're asked to pity) that have chosen to do this. That's why they're the Big Labels, you see? Smaller labels and artists (and authors and print publishers) can make a good living by selling actual art without million dollar videos and marketing campaigns.
Here's a synopsis of this article: big studios have big costs. Well, duh.
Like horses and donkeys, but they invariably produce a sterile hybrid called the Transmeta.
I hear you. I caught about half of it on its first airing, but that's still not enough to let me dip in to individual re-runs.
But it can be done. Farscape and Stargate SG-1 both have continuity in the sense of internal consistency, continuing plots and a strong story, but they aren't dominated by it. Each episode can be viewed as a standalone mini-movie. B5 also has some splendid one-off episodes, but suffers from having too many episodes that are almost entirely plot and character development.
I can appreciate why it did this, but bearing in mind the compromises that were made to get series 5 on the air, it was effort that was (I think) ultimately wasted. Earth: Final Conflict has just gone down a similar road, and here goes Andromeda as well.
It would be nice to see more SF series that start as cheesy and episodic tits-and-ass fests aimed at the lowest common denominator, and then once they've got the ratings, develop into something richer. Enterprise has certainly started the right way to do that. ;-)
To the extent that utterly predictable and stereotypical portrayal of flat, anodyne, uninvolving characters is "well acted", I agree. Similarly, I appreciate the skill that goes into the selection and production of Muzak, but I don't have to want to listen to the awful stuff.
Do you forget to close brackets in your code as well? And if you read more books, you might realise that they have fewer adverts. ;p
If we believe this, we're right to take action. But direct action. Punishing the company and the country for the actions of one man is rank hypocrisy. For all our vaunted military might and intelligence, we do seem to have a real problem when it comes to putting a bullet in the brain of the real bad guys.
So it's come to this again. Because we need or want to get rid of some controlling individuals, but won't go in and do it directly, we apply larger scale sanctions that mostly hurt the people that rely on them. Although this is really small scale stuff compared to Iraq and, what's that other place... oh yeah, Cuba.
I know, I know, it's up to the the locals to clean their own house, but I have to question our record on applying and lifting sanctions. Here we are cosying up with communist China, and one faction in Afghanistan, and yet we still sanction communist Cuba and Iraq and are bombing the crap out of our ex best buddies in Afghanistan, racking up civilian casualties among the populations we profess to want to liberate, while not being willing to take the media hit of spending the life of one US serviceman (volunteers all) to get the guy we originally went in after.
It would be nice if just for once, we could say "Here is a list of the bad guys. We are going to get them, but we will go after them, and only them, and will lose US servicemen in preference to killing civilians and discounting their lives as 'collateral damage'" Then without any ceremony or fanfare or spin doctoring, we sit and wait for six weeks until they've got complacent and cocky, then quietly blow the fuckers' brains out in dark alleyways.
This is tough on Somalia, but Somalians can at least count themselves lucky that they're not Iraqis or Cubas. God damn, I hate the hypocrisy of politicians.
Jeez, any of the Kazaa clients will get you that.
I agree though.
Whoa there! When I go to a doctor today with generic symptoms, I'm advised to wait a month and see if I get better by myself. Let's work on basic diagnosis techniques first before we start blueskying about nanobots turning us into immortal super beings, huh?
Yes, I remember clearly the day when Microsoft stole the BSD code, and it vanished from the hard drives of the BSD developers in the world. Oh, how they wept, cursing themselves for not realising that an open license meant that their work could be taken from them so easily, and the fruits of their labour denied to them.
But fortunately we have learned from that, and are now wiser and more cynical. Now there are no truly open or acknowledgement-ware licenses to be found.
Tell me, is this the world you live in?
GPL is one answer. It's far from being the only one.
Twaddle. He used to, but this essay reads like a piece of trivialised spin doctoring. Look, consider Microsoft. They are clearly Evil. And I am opposed to them. It stands to reason that I am Good. And so the GPL is not merely a necessity, it is empowering, it enhances freedom, it whitens teeth.
RMS is a visionary, but I fear he's lost the plot, and he's now more interested in advocating the GPL as a political statement than as a practical tool.
GNU has already started aping Microsoft and the governments' leads in a few areas. This essay reads like a spin doctor statement. It wields the word "freedom" like a weapon, until it's sucked all meaning from it.
It follows the same reasoning Dubya has been using: Look, clearly the Taliban are the Bad Guys. We are opposed to them. That has to make us the Good Guys. There is no third option; remember your Saturday Serials. As the Good Guys, you don't get to question any of our actions or motives in any area or in any context.
Kuhn and Stallman slip into that kind of rhetoric here. Microsoft are Bad. We're not Microsoft. So we must be Good, so don't question our assertion that the GPL is the only way to achieve freedom. Don't, whatever you do, ask us to define what we mean by freedom, and who we are applying it to, in one short sentence.
I really respect Stallman's work, but I feel like he's losing the plot and becoming obsessed with pushing an unncessarily muddy meaded and nebulous philosophy. I'd far prefer him just to be honest and pragmatic about the GPL, and say it plain and clear: it's my way or the highway.
You're saying that publications shouldn't do articles on anything that they carry advertising for? Adverts that will be aimed at their readership.
Would you prefer that tech sites only carry adverts for Polly Pockets dolls? So that they never get a click through and go under?
Silly hobbit. It's a fine article that covers both plusses and minuses and doesn't overly advocate purchasing an Xbox. If you're going to read an advertising supported publication (which you just did) you really can't ask for more than that.