[Mostar]

Hi Rooshers,

could I legally translate books in English or German into other less common languages and offer them as my own? Sounds stupid, but the it would not be direct plagiarism as I am using other words and phrases. I am also not talking about Dramas or Thrillers that I would translate, but more non-fictional books and guides.

Share your thoughts and don´t be too rude.

[SamuelBRoberts]

No, of course not.

[Caladbolg]

If you're in the United States, a translation falls under the same copyright protection as the original. Copyrights do not have to be registered for rights to attach, only to effectively be enforced; consequently, you can write something, wait sixty years for someone to infringe, then register and sue that very day.

A foreigner may not have the means or desire to enforce their rights in the US, but they would have that option whenever they choose to exercise it, barring laches.

Nonfiction is copyright protected too. However, only the expression is protected, not the facts. Your attorney can probably explain this better, but let's use a cookbook as an example. Recipes cannot be copyrighted. You can freely translate the list of ingredients, the steps, the cook time, all that factual stuff. However, you cannot copy the actual phrases used for the entire book, or the layout of the pages, and certainly not the photographs (which probably have independent copyright owned by the photographer and licensed to the author).

Short answer is no, unless those books are public domain. Unless an author has explicitly given a work to the public domain, a good rule of thumb is before 1920.

[Mat_hieu]

A lot of people do that. Just mix 3-4 ebooks, reformulate, translate on your own language and sell them. And of course you can give credit to the authors at the end of your Ebook.