Error in the Finnish disclaimer

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emminz
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Location: Finland

Post by emminz »

Hey!

I considered recording a piece in Finnish and caught a bit in the standard disclaimer that bothers me. The way it is currently, it effectively says that all Librivox recordings are public property, i.e. owned by the state ("äänitteet ovat julkista omaisuutta"). Overall, the Finnish disclaimer could use a revamp to make it more natural too; I find it rather machine-like.

I have no background in law and therefore cannot say what would be the legal translation of public domain in Finnish, but I would wager that "vapaita tekijänoikeuksista", as in "free of copyright" would get the point across.

Is there any chance the standard disclaimer could be edited? I would also be happy to revamp it as a whole if that is an option.
- Emmi
tovarisch
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Post by tovarisch »

AFAICT, "in public domain", "public property" and "owned by the state" are not necessarily the same thing. Whatever it means in Finnish law may actually be different from what it means in the USA. LibriVox is the subject of the American law because the collection is stored in the US and is published by Archive.org, as I understand it.

That said, if you can find a better translation, smoother sounding, more pleasant to the ear, while not deviating from the meaning "in public domain", it would nice, I am sure.
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
emminz
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Post by emminz »

tovarisch wrote: June 12th, 2020, 4:08 am AFAICT, "in public domain", "public property" and "owned by the state" are not necessarily the same thing. Whatever it means in Finnish law may actually be different from what it means in the USA. LibriVox is the subject of the American law because the collection is stored in the US and is published by Archive.org, as I understand it.

That said, if you can find a better translation, smoother sounding, more pleasant to the ear, while not deviating from the meaning "in public domain", it would nice, I am sure.
That is my point exactly; it says the recordings are public property, which is not the same as public domain. The translation I suggested is closer to the meaning behind being "in public domain", while no word-for-word translation for "public domain" seems to exist in Finnish.
- Emmi
KevinS
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Post by KevinS »

Perhaps the statement 'owned by no one' would work. Translated, of course.
tovarisch
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Post by tovarisch »

Actually, "public property" and "public domain" are very close. In Russian, for instance, the literal meaning of the legal term is "societal property" or "societal asset", so it's probably something similar in other languages. My point is that it needs to be distinguished from "property of the state". The gist has to be that one need not ask permission of anyone (author, publisher, state) to do anything with it.

Isn't there a stable phrase in Finnish that says that?
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

Free of copyright should be fine, emminiz. If you can provide a better Finnish translation of the disclaimer, we would be happy to add it in the wiki!
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emminz
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Post by emminz »

tovarisch wrote: June 12th, 2020, 10:35 am Actually, "public property" and "public domain" are very close. In Russian, for instance, the literal meaning of the legal term is "societal property" or "societal asset", so it's probably something similar in other languages. My point is that it needs to be distinguished from "property of the state". The gist has to be that one need not ask permission of anyone (author, publisher, state) to do anything with it.

Isn't there a stable phrase in Finnish that says that?
We don't have that! I suppose this is because we haven't had as serious a need for it. Finnish was not used by our authors in earlier history, as they found greater success using Swedish, Russian, or German. Finnish was frowned-upon as the language of the commoners. Our 19th century masters' works are now in public domain, but there appears to be an uneasy uncertainty about it. Every commenter coins their own term for it, saying, for example, that it "belongs to everyone", and there are many discussions on whether you can actually use old works freely, or whether the copyright passes down in the family - which the law of course says it does not; it expires 70 years after the author's death. I predict the rules will be clearly written out in 50 years, when the Moomins' copyright would expire.
- Emmi
emminz
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Post by emminz »

knotyouraveragejo wrote: June 12th, 2020, 10:38 am Free of copyright should be fine, emminiz. If you can provide a better Finnish translation of the disclaimer, we would be happy to add it in the wiki!
Thank you! I liked KevinS's suggestion, so I'm doing a quick gallup of my circle to see which they find easier to understand, "free of copyright" or "copyright is owned by no one". So far all I'm finding is a bias for whichever was provided first though! :lol:
Shall I post the finished suggestion here, or email it to the info mail?
- Emmi
tovarisch
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Post by tovarisch »

Post it here. :thumbs:

A forum is by far a better place for things like that because anyone who understands can comment, and the final result is improved. Emailing in this case is too presumptuous. What if there's a typo? Nobody will ever know... :wink:
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

copyright owned by no one has a slightly different implication than no copyright. We are specifically putting our recordings in the Public Domain.

I agree with tovarisch. Just post your translation here. Someone will copy it into the wiki for you.
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emminz
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Post by emminz »

As a new member, I would wish I could ask a simple question on the usual way to proceed without it being insinuated I was presumptuous. I'm only trying to help improve things. Seeing as there were typos in the existing disclaimer, I'm not too optimistic about there being enough Finns here for anyone to be able to proofread this, but here we go! I'd be happy to explain the reasoning behind the changes if needed.

Lisääthän nämä tiedot jokaisen äänitteen alkuun ja loppuun:
JOKAISEN ÄÄNITTEEN ALUSSA (Intro)
  • Sano: "Luku [luvun numero], [kirjan nimi]. Tämä on LibriVox - äänite. Kaikki LibriVox - äänitteet ovat vapaita tekijänoikeuksista. Lisätietoja varten tai ilmoittautuaksesi vapaaehtoiseksi mene osoitteeseen librivox piste org.”
  • Halutessasi voit sanoa: "Lukijana [oma nimesi].”
  • Sano: ”[kirjan nimi], kirjoittanut [kirjoittaja], luku [luvun numero]."
JOKAISEN ÄÄNITTEEN LOPUSSA:
  • Sano: "Luvun [luvun numero] loppu."
KOKO KIRJAN LOPUSSA
  • Sano lisäksi: "Kirjan [kirjan nimi] loppu, kirjoittanut [kirjoittaja]."
  • Halutessasi voit sanoa: "Lukijana [oma nimesi], [kaupunki, blogisi, podcastisi, nettisivusi]"
- Emmi
tovarisch
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Location: New Hampshire, USA

Post by tovarisch »

I think you're on the right track! :thumbs:

You can also post the same text with whatever preamble you wish, to the non-English forum. Perhaps folks who speak Finnish might see it there sooner than here...
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
Availle
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Post by Availle »

I'll simply move the thread there. :D
Cheers, Ava.
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