[Sca-cooks] Fadalat copyright

[Johnna Holloway]

Except in fact it wasn't me at all who said these things as regards 
copyright
but was in fact David Friedman, so where you see Johnna below insert instead
"David Friedman....

And yes you all have been dropped into what was a private conversation 
that was offlist.

Johnna


Suey wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
>>> Does anyone know if she got permission from the author of the 
>>> Spanish translation she (tis I ) is translating (Fadalat)? I was 
>>> never able to, which is why I stopped distributing the translation I 
>>> had gotten done from the same original.
>>> No I did not get permission from the author to do the English 
>>> translation because as you will see in my prefix the author of the 
>>> Spanish translation died in the 1960's. As that is about 50 years 
>>> ago I assume his wife is diseased.  They had no children. I do not 
>>> know the wife's first or last names so I have run out of ways try to 
>>> down tract the heirs down.
>> Johnna Holloway replied to me:
>> As a practical matter, I think that means you aren't at any serious 
>> risk of anyone objecting. But legally speaking, your inability (and 
>> mine) to locate someone who could give permission doesn't eliminate 
>> the problem.
>>
>> Checking U.S. law, it looks as though  something published abroad 
>> before 1978 by a foreign national without compliance with U.S. 
>> formailities is in the public domain if it was in the public domain 
>> in its source country as of 1 January 1996. If it wasn't in the 
>> public domain in its source country by then, or if it was published 
>> with compliance with U.S. formalities, copyright lasts for 95 years 
>> after publication so is still in force.
>>
>> So if it was in the public domain in Spain--I don't know what their 
>> rules are--by 1996, there's no problem. If it wasn't, then I suspect 
>> your translation violates the original translator's copyright, but 
>> nobody is likely to object.
>>
> I replied:
>>> On 11 December 2007 the Chilean authorities gave me the copywrite 
>>> for the English translation of the abridged and published Spanish 
>>> version of Granja's Fadalat. Further I have sent to translation to 
>>> Stefan and others on internet which double the security of my 
>>> copywrite as per Spanish law as I understand it.
>>> Suey
>>
> Johnna retorted:
>> The issue isn't your copyright. If I translate someone else's novel 
>> (say) from Spanish to English without his permission, the translation 
>> is a derivative work, hence covered by his copyright. It's also 
>> covered by my copyright. So someone who wants to copy it needs 
>> permission from both of us to do so legally.
>>
>> I doubt that it's going to be a problem in practice, but you should 
>> at least be aware of it. As I mentioned in my post, I got someone to 
>> translate the text from Spanish a long time ago, briefly included it 
>> in my collection, then pulled it when I realized there was a 
>> copyright problem.
> Someone else in all this chat said Fadalat was not Spanish. An answer 
> came back that it is Andalusian. We in Madrid call it Hispano-Muslim 
> or Hispano-Arab.
>
> Many thanks for the info on Manuela Marin's translation into Spanish 
> of Fadalat. I have purchased the book in order to consider translating 
> it into English. As a 'Spanish Author', I will make the necessary 
> inquiries to see if I can get the copy write as the woman seems to be 
> available to give the required permissions should I want to translate 
> it. A publisher would be a nice incentive but I have several other 
> projects in mind. . .  
> Now on Sicilian/Norman/Muslim cuisine, I am surprised there is nothing 
> written up about it. The golden age for their cooking might have been 
> Roger II's (12th C.). I know nothing about it except that I get a lot 
> of flap from Italians about how great Sicilian cooking is. My son went 
> to a wedding there two years ago. The bride was from there and the 
> groom is Spanish. The Sicilians were so set on showing the Spaniards 
> that they know nothing about native and Muslim cookery that they made 
> turron in the banquet hall in front of the guests after bringing in a 
> boar roasted on a spit, the whole nine yards! It was a super wedding. 
> As guys like him, son floats around the world as best man and I can 
> assure you this was one of his favorite weddings! (Too bad he did not 
> stay long enough to find a Sicilian bride for himself!)
> Suey