Bubba
01-Mar-2010, 19:08
On this (http://naogostodeplagio.blogspot.com/)blog (in Portuguese), Denise Bottman, a Brazilian translator, displays (alongside passages from the work of the victimized translators) the plagiarized translations she has dug up. Most of them seem to be of books that, in their original languages, are in the public domain. The translations, however, are still under copyright; the publishers simply copy them and put the name of a fictional translator (or no translator at all) on the copyright page. Okay, that kind of piracy and plagiarism is pretty much par for the course, really only a minor outrage, but what's crazy is that at least one of the publishers this translator has outed is suing her for damages and petitioning the courts for the immediate closure of her blog.
In my travels in several Andean countries, I've seen obviously pirated editions of books being sold in open-air markets and in small stationery shops. The editions were very cheap, usually printed on paper little better than newsprint. I think authors and translators who are victims of this kind of piracy would be of two minds about it; I also think piracy is a rational response to the inefficient way books are distributed in Latin America.
This piracy is hardly unique to the third world. When I was teaching (in the so-called first world), I myself must have violated copyright law to give material to my students. And not long ago, in France, some kid translated one of the more recent Harry Potter books and posted his translation online before the official French translation was in bookstores. It was, I believe, J. K. Rowling herself, who, to her credit, insisted that the holders of the rights not press charges against the kid.
But the behavior of the Brazilian publishers outed by Bottman is really beyond the pale: if you're going to print pirate editions, it seems to me, you don't try to pass for a respectable company, you don't sue whistle-blowers, you operate underground. That's what I think, anyway.
In my travels in several Andean countries, I've seen obviously pirated editions of books being sold in open-air markets and in small stationery shops. The editions were very cheap, usually printed on paper little better than newsprint. I think authors and translators who are victims of this kind of piracy would be of two minds about it; I also think piracy is a rational response to the inefficient way books are distributed in Latin America.
This piracy is hardly unique to the third world. When I was teaching (in the so-called first world), I myself must have violated copyright law to give material to my students. And not long ago, in France, some kid translated one of the more recent Harry Potter books and posted his translation online before the official French translation was in bookstores. It was, I believe, J. K. Rowling herself, who, to her credit, insisted that the holders of the rights not press charges against the kid.
But the behavior of the Brazilian publishers outed by Bottman is really beyond the pale: if you're going to print pirate editions, it seems to me, you don't try to pass for a respectable company, you don't sue whistle-blowers, you operate underground. That's what I think, anyway.