question about copyright / public domain (Frigyes Karinthy)

[zelda_pinwheel]

I found a couple of texts by Frigyes Karinthy whom i mentioned in the "obscure books" thread, and i wanted to upload them.

they are : the novel Please, Sir ! and a short story in this collection here (i don't know about the pd status of the other authors in the collection, so i probably would add the short story by Karinthy to the novel and make one ebook).

Karinthy died in 1938, so his work is PD in Canada already and will be in the US and France next year (if i have understood everything correctly...) however in this case the texts are translations, how does this work ? i have found reference to an István Farkas (translator of Please, Sir !) online but he was a hungarian painter, who died in 1944 ; i don't know if it is the same man.

there is a bibliography here, and scrolling down there is a list of "Foreign Language Publications" where i found mention of this version of Please, Sir ! however i don't really understand it. The information it gives is :

Tanár úr kérem!
Please, Sir! Tr. by István Farkas.
Budapest: Corvina, 1968.
Berlin-Leipzig: Vogel, 1925.
Warsaw: Nasza Kriegaia, 1959.
Prague: Ceskoslov. spisovatel, 1959.
Tel Aviv: Éked, 1960.
Tallin: Ajalehtede Ajakinjade Kinjasten, 1960.
Bucharest: Ed. Tineretului, 1961.
Novi Sad: Forum, 1965.
Ozoir-La-Ferriére: In fine, 1992.

It is the correct version (translator István Farkas), however why so many dates ? are they dates of publication ?

it also mentions the short story :

A cirkusz
Berlin: Reurs-Pollack, 1913.
Prague: Odeon, 1975; Dilic, 1959.
Brussels: Van Belberghe, 1995.

short version of my question, can i upload these texts ?

[HarryT]

A translation (even of a work that's in the public domain) has its own copyright - ie the translation doesn't enter the public domain until 70/50 years after the death of the translator.

[zelda_pinwheel]

ok, so what do i do in the case of this mysterious István Farkas ? i cannot find any specific information about Farkas, translator, other than a list of his translations. if it is the painter (perhaps he was multi-talented), he died in 1944, it is pd in canada. if it is not, i have no idea. there is no copyright info in the pages where i found the texts.

[HarryT]

Looks like he's still alive. See:

http://www.translationdirectory.com/...van_farkas.php

[HarryT]

... although it's possible it's not the same person. There is a link on that page to e-mail him, however, so you could send him an e-mail and ask him.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i did see that actually, however i don't think it's the same person, as he is listed as a translator since 2000, whereas the translations i am talking about were first published in the early 1900's (1925 for the novel, 1913 for the short story). i think it's highly unlikely that the translator would still be alive ; it's a question of finding out when he died.

[HarryT]

Yes, I see what you mean!

[HarryT]

A further Google search shows books translated by him in 1971 (a translation of the letters of the composer Bartok), so I'm afraid that would mean that he's certainly not in the public domain anywhere yet.

[Nate the great]

I couldn't find anything on the translator.

Darn it. Why didn't he have the courtesy to start his Wikipedia article before he died?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A further Google search shows books translated by him in 1971 (a translation of the letters of the composer Bartok), so I'm afraid that would mean that he's certainly not in the public domain anywhere yet.

if we suppose it's the same guy... there are already 2 of them, for all we know this name is the hungarian equivalent of "John Smith" in english...

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I couldn't find anything on the translator.

Darn it. Why didn't he have the courtesy to start his Wikipedia article before he died?

i KNOW !!!! sheesh, some people are so inconsiderate...

[HarryT]

It might be worth sending an e-mail to the one who is still around and asking him if he knows anything about his "namesake". Perhaps it's the "family business" .

[zelda_pinwheel]

you know, if ever there were a poster child for the advocates of simplifying copyright law, this case is it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

just to keep y'all updated (because i know you are fascinated by this saga, and waiting impatiently to know whether you will be able to read ebooks by Karinthy soon... ), i have sent a mail to the translator homonym of Farkas. now, just waiting to see if he will reply, and whether he knows anything about his homonym...

[MsAnthrope]

I have a different question about copyright/public domain. This may have been answered in another thread, if so..I'm sorry.

Looking through Kindle books on the Amazon site, I am seeing books for sale that are in the public domain (found on Gutenberg, ManyBooks, etc).

Is this legal? Should I quit my day job and start an 'e-publishing' house for pd books?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by MsAnthrope

I have a different question about copyright/public domain. This may have been answered in another thread, if so..I'm sorry.

Looking through Kindle books on the Amazon site, I am seeing books for sale that are in the public domain (found on Gutenberg, ManyBooks, etc).

Is this legal? Should I quit my day job and start an 'e-publishing' house for pd books?

what ? unscrupulous publishers ???? making an easy dollar off the unsuspecting public ??? shocking !!!
you let me know if you open that e-publishing house, maybe i'll buy stocks.

back to my own topic (), the present day István Farkas has very kindly replied to my mail to tell me that no, not only is he not the Farkas in question nor even a member of his family, but in fact he had never heard of him until i wrote ("Zelda Pinwheel : reuniting hungarian translators with their long lost, probably dead homonyms, since 2008"... that's my new tagline, yo). he does not personally have any idea when Farkas One died, however he did give me the email address of the Press, PR and Marketing Manager for the hungarian publisher who published the book, as well as the email address of the copyright agency. I have now written to both of these.

let me tell you, if it turns out this work is in the public domain, i will upload the ebook, and every last one of ye better read it.