Re: non-English copyright
Atsuhito Kohda wrote:
>There are many programs developed by Japanese programmers
>which have copyright written in Japanese.
>
>When we debianize these programs, is it possible to use
>Japanese copyright as copyright file of Debian packages ?
Since this is the original copyright it ought to be included.
However, for it to be useful, you will have to provide a translation,
or else no-one outside Japan will know what they are allowed to do.
>I am afraid you will answer it is impossible but please note;
>
>- if the Japanese author(s) and/or maintainer(s) translate
>Japanese copyright to English, it may contains many possible
>errors in English usages.
It is always better for translations to be done by someone who is a
native speaker of the target language. If possible, find a Japanese-
speaking Englishman to do the translation. If you cannot, post the
translation, making sure that you say it is a translation, and ask
for comments. They should show whether it says what you think it
does.
>- I do not know about law at all but perhaps from a legal point
>of view only the original copyright is effective and the translated
>one has only a meaning as a reference at most.
That is correct. However, any court outside Japan would need to be
given a translation to work from.
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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