Translations permissions

[aminah-sc]

This is a thread to record permissions given by translators to add their work to SuttaCentral.

Add new permissions using a comment.

[aminah-sc]

Permission to add Russian of translation DN 25 and Vimanavatthu (Itthivimana mula+athakattha) given here: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/russian-translation-dn-25-and-vimanavatthu-itthivimana-mula-athakattha/10667

[bksubhuti]

what is the copyright on cped and ncped .. seems to be published in 1949 51 57. How do we know it is public domain? 90% of all books are in the public domain because they needed to renew the copyright back then and didn't. But how do we know.?

[sujato]

Well, that's an interesting question, and not easy to answer.

A notice on https://www.budsas.org/ebud/dict-pe/index.htm contains the following:

This electronic version is offered FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY by arrangement with the publisher. This is a Gift of Dhamma. You may print this file for your personal use, and you may make and distribute unaltered copies of this file, provided that you charge no fees of any kind for its distribution. Otherwise, all rights reserved.

It does not specify the exact publisher, but it refers to metta.lk, where a version is indeed found. This is a desktop executable for Windows 95 and 98, so I cannot open it to check the license. Thus it is hard to assess the exact status of this license. It is common to find license statements that have no legal basis.

Normally the copyright holder would be the original publisher. It seems the original edition is this one:

https://archive.org/details/concisepaliengli0000budd/page/n3

Note that there is no notice of copyright on this. These days it is normal that a work is copyright by default, even without a notice, but I don't know if that was the case in Sri Lanka when this was published. My guess would be that the legal situation would have been unclear. No-one was that worried about copyright in those days for such content. They were just happy to get it out there.

But in this case the original publisher is unclear. There is a notice attributing publication to “The Colombo Apothecaries’ Co. Ltd.” It seems odd that such a group is sponsoring Dhamma publications, but there are records of them making other publications.

Incidentally, a record in the Getty Museum attributes some lovely old photos to them, claiming that the group dissolved in the 1920s. It seems that isn't so, for there is a legal record as late as 1998.

Now, in the original edition, it seems that the original publisher was U Chandradasa de Silva, but his name is covered over by a sticker for the apothecaries. Who knows what happened, but it could well have been just a mistake in the printing, or perhaps a change of sponsor during the project.

So, to sum up:

• The author has passed away nearly sixty years ago.
• The original publication has no specified license.
• It is not clear who the original publisher was.
• If a default license applies, it is not clear who would own it.
• The license on budasas presumably stems from metta.lk, but there is no information on the authority.

I know the good folks behind both budasas and metta.lk, and it would in principle be possible to ask them about this. But it was twenty years ago and I doubt they remember anything.

In the original introduction, Prof Wijesekera remarks that cost is one reason for the need of a concise dictionary for general student use. I also take note of the fact that Ven Buddhadatta kept revising his dictionary until late in life, clearly seeing his work as ongoing. Given that multiple sources have hosted the dictionary for free for several decades, it seems to me in the spirit of the creators to assume it should be made freely available, and be improved where possible.

[sujato]

Metta sutta in Hawaiian

LicenceAgreement-JakeHDavis.pdf
20210517_Sutta Central translation licence agreement.pdf

[o28o]

Hi there SuttaCentral team😁😄

We've made a portion of mn suttas in json format in Russian

It's the same translator SV as in html format at sc.net right now.

It is possible to add them?
Russian json files are available here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vSuG1Wad0HN2IZ7XhdKYrlFFFCLDpVWe

[sujato]

Hi o280, thanks for the message. Be aware, I don't check these very often, you'll catch me more reliably on Discourse.

But yes, we'd love to add these translations/. It may take a little while, as we do not have a regular volunteer to prepare texts. Unless you'd like to do it?

[o28o]

Good day Ven. Sujato.

I'd like to see what should be done for preparations.

As we already have json files as in sc-data may be it'll go easier.

[ccronje]

Note: Discussion continued suttacentral/bilara-data#2381