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Update: The discussion below assumes that the translators were indeed Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. The article now notes that another source credits a different translator. It's even more difficult to check the copyright status of a work whose authorship is uncertain. I hope we get this figured out. Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 10:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
The copyright on Xu Zhimo's works has run out in most of the world (more than 70 years since his death), but what about Yang Xianyi's English translation of Xu's poem, which is used on this page? Yes I know this translation is copied all over the Web (often without attribution), but we are supposed to respect copyright. A translation usually counts as a literary work with the same copyright protection as if it were an original literary work created by the translator. [1] Yang died in 2009 (his wife died in 1999); that means China's current law of "life + 50 years" runs to at least 2059 (and European "life + 70 years" runs to at least 2079), and we wouldn't be able to use the translation before then without a license or a "fair use" rationale. However, China's copyright law did undergo changes between 1990 and 1992 (see Intellectual property in China#Copyright law) and China did not join the Berne Convention until 1992. If the couple's translation was first published in China, and if this happened before 1990 (which is possible although I have not yet found anything that says when the translation was published), it is possible that some previous version of China's copyright law still applies to this work in China. But I have no data on what the previous law was, and whether the new law extended the copyright of existing works and/or put back into copyright any works that were previously in the public domain. Also I'm not sure if perhaps the Berne Convention would require countries outside China to still treat the work as copyrighted even if China itself does not (not all countries implement the Rule of the shorter term for example). Is there a lawyer in the house?.... Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 18:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
An anonymous user has now edited out the uncertain-copyright translation and replaced it with a translation whose copyright is even less certain - if that one was first published in 2008 in the UK then it will certainly be in copyright (and we'd have to check it's "fair use"); the only exception to this is if that book used a known out-of-copyright translation or if permission is known to have been granted. We still need to know where we are with this. Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 17:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Update: That IP user was Guohua Chen. This was confirmed to me in an email which I am satisfied is authentic (Chen has been interviewed for the same forthcoming publication as I have, and correctly stated details which an impostor could not possibly know at this time). The publisher's copyright agreement allowed Chen to republish elsewhere, so Wikipedia does have permission to use this translation. Perhaps we'd better note that in the reference. Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 10:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
The date of birth is said variously to be 1897 and 1896. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.0.228 ( talk) 14:11, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
The penultimate stanza's 2nd line should read Quiet is my my farewell music
悄悄 is used again in the final verse and it means quiet/quietly which could be peacefully but the resonance of the poem doesn't work.
On the basis that any copyright works uploaded to Wikipedia have permission to edit I'm therefore taking the liberty of adjusting the translation accordingly NBeale ( talk) 16:00, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
![]() | A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on November 19, 2021 and November 19, 2022. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Update: The discussion below assumes that the translators were indeed Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. The article now notes that another source credits a different translator. It's even more difficult to check the copyright status of a work whose authorship is uncertain. I hope we get this figured out. Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 10:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
The copyright on Xu Zhimo's works has run out in most of the world (more than 70 years since his death), but what about Yang Xianyi's English translation of Xu's poem, which is used on this page? Yes I know this translation is copied all over the Web (often without attribution), but we are supposed to respect copyright. A translation usually counts as a literary work with the same copyright protection as if it were an original literary work created by the translator. [1] Yang died in 2009 (his wife died in 1999); that means China's current law of "life + 50 years" runs to at least 2059 (and European "life + 70 years" runs to at least 2079), and we wouldn't be able to use the translation before then without a license or a "fair use" rationale. However, China's copyright law did undergo changes between 1990 and 1992 (see Intellectual property in China#Copyright law) and China did not join the Berne Convention until 1992. If the couple's translation was first published in China, and if this happened before 1990 (which is possible although I have not yet found anything that says when the translation was published), it is possible that some previous version of China's copyright law still applies to this work in China. But I have no data on what the previous law was, and whether the new law extended the copyright of existing works and/or put back into copyright any works that were previously in the public domain. Also I'm not sure if perhaps the Berne Convention would require countries outside China to still treat the work as copyrighted even if China itself does not (not all countries implement the Rule of the shorter term for example). Is there a lawyer in the house?.... Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 18:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
An anonymous user has now edited out the uncertain-copyright translation and replaced it with a translation whose copyright is even less certain - if that one was first published in 2008 in the UK then it will certainly be in copyright (and we'd have to check it's "fair use"); the only exception to this is if that book used a known out-of-copyright translation or if permission is known to have been granted. We still need to know where we are with this. Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 17:39, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Update: That IP user was Guohua Chen. This was confirmed to me in an email which I am satisfied is authentic (Chen has been interviewed for the same forthcoming publication as I have, and correctly stated details which an impostor could not possibly know at this time). The publisher's copyright agreement allowed Chen to republish elsewhere, so Wikipedia does have permission to use this translation. Perhaps we'd better note that in the reference. Silas S. Brown ( email, talk) 10:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
The date of birth is said variously to be 1897 and 1896. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.0.228 ( talk) 14:11, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
The penultimate stanza's 2nd line should read Quiet is my my farewell music
悄悄 is used again in the final verse and it means quiet/quietly which could be peacefully but the resonance of the poem doesn't work.
On the basis that any copyright works uploaded to Wikipedia have permission to edit I'm therefore taking the liberty of adjusting the translation accordingly NBeale ( talk) 16:00, 3 June 2017 (UTC)