OT Mostly - copyright ? regarding translating

"Dr. Brat" wrote...
Don't translators have to get permission in order to translate, though?

Absolutely. Good point.
Dawne

Elizabeth wrote
If I were you, I would look up copyright rules under "fair use." In
other words, part of copywritten material may be used for teaching and
learning purposes as long as the teacher or employer owns an original
and as long as only a small percentage of the work in copied. Be sure
to cite the parts you translate and to note that it is your translation.

I wondered if this might not be a bit like recipes. Recipes cannot be
copyrighted, but the formatting, writing style etc of a recipe book
certainly can be. Not what you say, in that instance, but how you say it.
How one does a stitch is kind of like the ingredients of a recipe--but
exactly how you explain and diagram it might be particiular to an author.
(I am not explaining this very well!!). There are only so many ways to say
"wrap the thread around the needle 3 times", and I think that is parallel
to "cream butter and sugar". Does this make sense??
Dawne

Dawne Peterson wrote:
Elizabeth wrote

If I were you, I would look up copyright rules under "fair use." In
other words, part of copywritten material may be used for teaching and
learning purposes as long as the teacher or employer owns an original
and as long as only a small percentage of the work in copied. Be sure
to cite the parts you translate and to note that it is your translation.


I wondered if this might not be a bit like recipes. Recipes cannot be
copyrighted, but the formatting, writing style etc of a recipe book
certainly can be. Not what you say, in that instance, but how you say it.
How one does a stitch is kind of like the ingredients of a recipe--but
exactly how you explain and diagram it might be particiular to an author.
(I am not explaining this very well!!). There are only so many ways to say
"wrap the thread around the needle 3 times", and I think that is parallel
to "cream butter and sugar". Does this make sense??

To me, it does. If, however, Jeanine was planning on writing a bit
about the history or uses and was going to translate snippets of
someone's work to do that, those translations would have to be properly
cited. If she's read so much that she can just talk about it or write
about it from her own knowledge, then no citations are necessary.

Elizabeth
--
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~living well is the best revenge~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate
and expand her sense of actual possibilities. --Adrienne Rich
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hi Dawne

WHO said recipies cannot be copyrighted?

Certain recipies can even be patented!
And the processes to make those recipies can patented as well.

Something like 10 separate patents cover as an example Pringles Potato
Crisps and it's packaging.
Copyrights and registered trade marks cover the name and packaging
designs as well, etc.

TTUL
Gary

Something like 10 separate patents cover as an example Pringles Potato
Crisps and it's packaging.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
A bare recipe--take 250 ml butter, cream with 125 ml sugar, beat in 2 eggs
one at at time--cannot be copyrighted. A book of recipes can be, since the
author usually contributes original creative word in how s/he writes the
directions, explains the techniques, discusses the origin of recipes, talks
about personal experiences or whatever.
What are patented in things like Pringles are production techniques, like
the process that reduces perfectly nice pototes into the very fine
styrofoam puffy substance that can be stamped and formed into stackable
chips, and the machinery that does those things.
A recipe for fried potatoes cannot be copyrighted, since the combining of
the basic ingredients--potatoes and some kind of frying material, cannot be
original. But, if someone were to invent an entirely new kind of frying
material, like the horridble Olestra of a few years back, that could be
patented.

Dawne

Dawne Peterson wrote:
What are patented in things like Pringles are production techniques, like
the process that reduces perfectly nice pototes into the very fine
styrofoam puffy substance that can be stamped and formed into stackable
chips, and the machinery that does those things.

Oh, my goodness. What a great laugh for the day. And I sure needed one!

Thanks, Dawne!
Dianne

"Dianne Lewandowski" wrote
Oh, my goodness. What a great laugh for the day. And I sure needed one!

O, I am so cranky I am expecting my GOW card in the mail---but real
vegetables are done such a disservice by some modern processes.
Dawne

Hi Dawne

I do agree with you!

But there are exceptions to everything.

An uncommon blend of ingredients, not considered normal practice in
the art, can and is often copyrighted and on occasion even patented.
Bet even so, only a specific part of the copyright is enforceable, not
those parts considered common usage in the art.

I would mention a specific copyright for a specific cookie recipie,
but I can no longer get my hands on the paperwork to prove it, as they
now belong to a baking company as their property.
The company now holding the paperwork is Archway Baking Company.

Quaker Oat Company holds several copyrights on cookies!
As does Jenny Craig's recipies and Anchor Food products that I know
of.

TTUL
Gary

"Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr."
I do agree with you!

But there are exceptions to everything.

I agree we are agreeing (???). The recipes for certain commercially
produced food products are closely protected, but this is rarely a matter
of a simple copyright but a more complex web of copyright and patent
relating to trade secrets---is the cookie recipe you are thinking of the
one that involved nailing down a commercial baking process that allowed the
cookie to remain chewie once packaged?? I recall that one beng in the
news some years back.

I raised the recipe comparison in this matter because non-commercial
recipes and instructions for basic embroidery stitches seem to me to have a
parallel--theere are only so many basic ways of describing them. That is a
far cry from, say, commercial knitting machines, where the instructional
manuals are copyrightable and the mechanics of the machinery subject to
patent, even though the end result looks like something knitted and purled
in the normal way.
Dawne
Dawne

Hi Dawne

The specific cookie recipie was akin to Famous Amos before going
commercial with commercial processes. Amos made his own cookies and
sold them himself.
Archway Baking sold a cookie under the name Ruth's Oatmeal. I don't
know how widespread that company is or if it was only local to MO and
IL.
BUT, there were ingredients in the cookie dough that were uncommon at
the time of inception to be used in cookies.
As a home baker, Ruth only had access to retail grocery store type
products and developed her formula from common ingredients, not
necessarily those used in cookies. Kept it a secret until after the
judging when she disclosed it to a baker interested in her formula.
They insured that her recipie was copyrighted, then they went on to
formulate a similar looking and tasting cookie using commercial
ingredients and copyrighted that as well.

Famous Amos, from what I have heard, sorta fell along those same
lines. Made at home, protected during the process of going
commercial.

The enforceable part of the copyright is for example, the blending of
gelatin, pudding and oil into a cookie dough.

Using pudding in cake recipies is not all that uncommon to keep cake
moist. Gelatin has even been used in cake recipies, and oil is a very
common ingredient in most recipies.

But in cookies, in the entirety of the registered copyrights, there
was not one instance where a recipie combined gelatin, pudding and oil
with a dough or batter to be baked. When the copyright issued, this
issue also rendered patenting impossible as the recipie was now
considered prior art.
Then following in suit, similar copyrights issued for cookies using
the commercial formulations of the ingredients, and probably several
of them all very near alike but far enough apart to be considered
individually.

When you read the ingredients labels on commercially made food
products, most of us don't even recognize half of the ingredients
listed, and they sure don't sell them in any grocery store baking
aisle.

TTUL
Gary