Various newer translations of the Bible are subject to copyright. Heck, we’ve discussed how translations were added to copyright at one time (I think you might have even mentioned it). Not that they should be, but that’s the law I believe.

Isn’t a translation a presentation of facts? It’s not a new idea. It’s not a new expression of an idea. It’s a restatement of an old expression of an old idea in a new language.

Facts can’t be copyrighted.

I do think there is an element of creativity in translations. While some try to give the most literal, others try instead to capture the true meaning or intent behind the words. I’ve seen chinese translations and the direct literal translations can be pretty brutal.

A slightly more interesting text to compare would be the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He was a 12th century Persian astronomer and the Rubaiyat was a particularly beautiful book of poetry. In fact, when my mother first immigrated to Canada from Ireland decades ago, this was the only book she took with her.

The poetry was divided into quatrains and the different translators would rearrange the quatrains to better capture their interpretation of the philosophy of the author. Wikipedia has a pretty interesting write up on that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam

I’m no expert on the law but it does seem that if there was a fair amount of creativity and decision making in the process of making a translation, a copyright over that particular translation does not seem out of order. But of course, what if someone else does a translation, and they choose the same words as the best fit for some sections? it does get messy pretty quick.

The tone of the article is entirely misleading. Stephen Mitchell, who is also a poet, created his own ‘translation’ of the Tao Te Ching. He wrote it himself. Yes, it is based on his reading of the ancient text. Mitchell’s work, published in the early and mid-90’s, is clearly a derivative work based on a text in the public domain — but it is clearly not equivalent to the public domain text itself. Anyone who has read it and another version will be able to see almost immediately that Mitchell’s is distinct (whether they actually like it or not is a separate question — he uses She as a neutral pronoun, for example). Dwyer should have asked for permission or paid for a license — or simply circumvented the whole issue by using one of the many translations of this text that are 100% in the public domain. Dwyer might claim fair use if he uses only a small portion of Mitchell’s work, discusses it comparatively, etc., but there are limits to how much he can legally profit from another’s person’s work.