The State and Revolution, V.I. Lenin

Post by **chocoholic** » June 21st, 2013, 6:31 pm

Well, the Russian original was written in 1917, so I'd want to know more about this English translation before judging whether it's OK. (The translation would also have to have been published in 1922 or earlier to be public domain in the US.) The source you cite lists 1918 as the publication date but I am a bit doubtful that an English translation would have been available so soon after he wrote it. The only English editions available as scans on the Internet Archive and Google Books are from the 1960's and 1970's. I will do a little more sleuthing.

edit: Cross-posted with Tricia. I didn't look closely at that text (too busy looking for original scans) -- it certainly sounds as though that particular translation is not in the US public domain even though the original Russian is.

Post by **TriciaG** » June 21st, 2013, 6:49 pm

It looks like the link Carl posted on page 1 is still viable, and it is a translation published in 1919, so it's OK to read here. However, one must sign up for a free 1-day trial to get the whole book.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » June 22nd, 2013, 12:55 am

The second edition (1918) is available at Hathi Trust: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89001443928

Ruth

Post by **TriciaG** » June 22nd, 2013, 6:29 am

Preface to the 2nd Edition is dated Dec 30, 1918. I wonder when the translation was done.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » June 22nd, 2013, 6:53 am

Hmm... I will see if I can find out anything. Bear with me.

Ruth

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » June 22nd, 2013, 7:01 am

Strike that one, then. The English translation was published in 1919 by Allen & Unwin, but the publisher of the Hathi Trust copy is Lawrence & Wishart, and it appears to have been published in 1933 in London.

Ruth

Pseudonicus · Post by **Pseudonicus** » June 22nd, 2013, 10:50 am

I was hoping the marxists.org edition would come under another rule (such as the translators giving it into the public domain or something), but it looks like it's back to the original plan of using CarlManchester's Questia link. Thanks for the help!

Post by **Rapunzelina** » July 1st, 2013, 7:39 am

Has this text source been mentioned? http://collections.mun.ca/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/radical&CISOPTR=13673
Can it be used?

Post by **TriciaG** » July 1st, 2013, 8:27 am

Page scans, dated 1919. Yes, that should be good.

Pseudonicus · Post by **Pseudonicus** » July 2nd, 2013, 2:16 pm

That looks like the same edition as the Questia book. Makes me sad that I spent an hour copy/pasting it all during my 24 hour Questia trial. Good find!

Post by **Rapunzelina** » July 2nd, 2013, 3:29 pm

Yeah, I hoped I would have saved you that trouble

Oh well, the more a project troubles us, the more we come to love it?

lookingintoart · Post by **lookingintoart** » September 11th, 2015, 3:23 am

Has this idea got any further? As it would be a really good idea as only one of Lenin's works are on LibriVox and we have found a version that is definitely in the Public Domain.

Post by **Availle** » September 11th, 2015, 3:45 am

No, this has never gone beyond the suggestions stage.

Both text links appear to be in a format that will be hard to read directly off the screen, but in the last two years, maybe another online version has popped up somewhere.

lookingintoart · Post by **lookingintoart** » September 11th, 2015, 4:24 am

I notice that Lenin's Two Tactics of Social Democracy is on LibriVox because it was taken from http://www.marx2mao.com/ET.html as the texts are from the Chinese Government editions which were not copyrighted. (see discussion viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7349 )

So is it OK to use these editions on LibriVox?

I notice that there are things after 1922 such as the UK House of Commons, Presidential Addresses, etc.

Post by **Availle** » September 11th, 2015, 7:16 am

You really read that ancient thread? All of it?

That thread is from 2007, when LV was barely more than a bunch of friends recording stuff together. We have grown vastly since then and have become more careful with respect to which texts we allow. We do this mostly to protect librivox as a whole, but also to spare our readers from putting a lot of work into something that might have to be taken down in case of (even only alleged) copyright infringement.

Today, we only allow texts that are clearly PD in the US - and for post-1922 stuff we rely heavily on gutenberg.org, which are very diligent when doing their own checking. Essentially: If it's on gutenberg, it's okay, otherwise, it's not.

Works of governments and their employees in general cannot be copyrighted. That's raw law texts for example, speeches of officials down from the president, the House of Commons addresses you have mentioned. Hence, they are okay in any case. However, I doubt that if the US government would publish a new edition of "Harry Potter", this would make the book pd...

So, I'm not sure whether the marx2mao site would pass muster today, but I am no copyright expert. They even state that some of their editions may be different than the original ones... Besides, China doesn't seem to worry much about copyrights/any type of rights in general.

In any case, as the two links posted above are clearly pd, one can always read from those.