Talk:Xu Zhimo

Copyright status of Yang Xianyi's translation

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)

It's a very interesting question. By general principles, you would expect subsistence to be governed by the copyright law in force at the time the work was created. P.R. China's first copyright law was not enacted until 1990 (and did not come into force until 1 June 1991). The Copyright Law of 1990 (Although I prefer to call it the "Author's Rights Law" rather than the "Copyright Law" because the drafters of the Qing Author's Rights Law Code, from which the modern law traces its domestic origin, made a conscious choice between the English concept of copyright and the continental droit d'auteur, and chose the latter.) did not provide for retroactive effect, so as a matter of legal theory no work published before 1 June 1991 in the PRC was protected by copyright. And yet, since 1991 Chinese courts have clearly and consistently treated works published before 1991 as enjoying copyright protection, as if the law applied retroactively. I've seen one theory that the law implicitly applied retroactively, but that any work copyright in which would have expired by 1991 was never protected by PRC copyright law, whereas works which would have been protected by copyright in 1991 "remained" protected despite having been created before the law came into effect.

Assuming the translation was published some time before 1991 but after 1941 (say), it would probably be deemed to be protected by copyright by a Chinese court. However, the Chinese copyright law contains the usual "fair use" defence for "criticism or review" with the usual requirement for attribution etc, as well as other exceptions that might apply. Does quoting the translation in its entirety for the purpose of Wikipedia fall into fair use? I suspect not, but I don't know enough of Chinese copyright law to say.

There is also the interesting question of whether the work might be protected by R.O. China copyright law. Although ROC law was declared void in the PRC in 1949, could you enforce ROC copyright in a court in Taiwan today for a work published in a territory which, at the time of publication, was within the theoretical jurisdiction of the ROC under ROC law? Would the ROC's cross-strait disputes rules provide the answer? Did ROC laws cease to exist after 1949? 1971? Is this a matter of private international law or do we have to consider whether the ROC remained a "state" under public international law? It's enough to do one's head in.

(I am a lawyer but not a Chinese one, so you should treat the above as a layman's speculation.) --2.30.90.235 (talk) 21:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Copyright status of Guohua Chen's translation

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)

Date

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)

Translation

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)

I'm not sure we should be trying to "fix" Guohua Chen's notable published translation, unless we cite criticism of it from outside sources. Wikipedia is probably the wrong place for crowd-sourced poetic "resonance". Silas S. Brown (email, talk) 07:46, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

It's a very key principle of WikiPedia that once material has been uploaded it can be edited. And in this case the repeated use of 悄悄 is a fundamental feature of the Chinese poem, which is needlessly lost in this translation. (as so often with Chinese translations, the Chinese translator understands how Chinese works much better than English). Any other views. NBeale (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2017 (UTC)