I don't think you guys understand. The way copyright law is in the U.S., every piece of material that you publish (as in, on here, which is hosted in the U.S.) automatically falls under your copyright. We aren't translating the script of the movie, we're translating whatever 2chan is putting up on that wiki (and hoping it's close to the movie). Ideas can't be copyrighted, only patented. The copyright license refers only to the literal work -- the text itself. Whether or not a translation counts as a derivative work is beyond my knowledge, but in the case that it does then we'll need the permission of whoever owns that 2chan transcription. As far as whether the transcript is infringing on Khara's copyright, that's the concern of the owner of the wiki that's publishing it. There are so many links in this chan that the actual legality becomes extremely ambiguous (putting out an aural work, as Studio Khara -> transcribing what one hears in the work, as 2chan -> translating what was transcribed, as us). In any case, we are the weakest link as far as copyright infringement goes, with 2chan being the strongest. If Studio Khara or Funimation send evageeks.org and command-q.org a cease and desist, I'm sure both sites will gladly remove the offending material.
The point being that simply posting some translations doesn't make it public domain, but rather the opposite. A copyright license must be included (there is no such thing as "public domain" for material like this, only licenses which approximate public domain). Creative Commons was the best one to use, as far as my knowledge of licensing extends, due to its proximity to public domain. The specific one mentioned above is desirable in this case, as it:
Permits free use
Permits modification
Restricts commercial use*
Requires sharing of modifications
Requires attribution to the project
*Again, common for fan translations, due to the way it weakens potential liabilities.
If anyone has suggestions for a better license, please share them. But the fact is that, being published in the U.S. (evageeks.org and command-q.org), it must be licensed or else the full copyright is retained by the original publishers (which is not desirable legally nor for anyone who wants to get subs). This is a concern for both the owner of this site, as well as me, since I own the other site involved.
That said, I just finished the movie, and I'm blown away.
Edit: The above is irrelevant if the translation or transcriptions don't constitute original works in any way. In that case, yes, we're infringing Studio Khara's copyright to the dialogue and there's no need for a license, since anyone publishing/distributing it is committing infringement. But I'm unconvinced neither constitute an original work, or at the very least a derivative work. Consider someone taking down something he hears, and putting it into Google Translate. Are the individual or Google committing copyright infringement? I'm pretty sure Google isn't, but the individual may be. Regardless, we're the role of Google in that analogy.
Edit2: Further, if the individual in the above example is infringing, all lyrics sites would be illegal. In fact, here's a fully comparable analogy:
Utada Hikaru puts out a song, say, Beautiful World. A Japanese lyrics site publishes the lyrics by ear. An English lyrics site posts a translation. Someone downloads a microphone recording of the song, and reads the translation.
In this case, Utada Hikaru is Studio Khara. The Japanese lyric site is 2chan's wiki. The English lyrics site is roe2wade. The person is the same, someone gets the cam somewhere, and reads/downloads our translation.
I'm pretty sure the only one committing infringement in this case is the person downloading the cam. As for whether the English lyrics need a license, I'm not sure. They either constitute an original work, or a derivative work. The former requires a license as explained above. The latter I'm not sure about, but I'll look into it.
Edit3: lol, it's right here in the U.S. legal definition of "derivative work"
A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.
The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.
So the translation is a derivative work needing its own copyright license, which does not impinge on Khara's license. I'm going to dump relevant info as I learn it. Here's a quote pertaining to a Supreme Court decision about the situation:
I believe the answer to the question of justification turns primarily on whether, and to what extent, the challenged use is transformative. The use must be productive and must employ the quoted matter in a different manner or for a different purpose from the original. ...[If] the secondary use adds value to the original--if the quoted matter is used as raw material, transformed in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings--this is the very type of activity that the fair use doctrine intends to protect for the enrichment of society.
Transformative uses may include criticizing the quoted work, exposing the character of the original author, proving a fact, or summarizing an idea argued in the original in order to defend or rebut it. They also may include parody, symbolism, aesthetic declarations, and innumerable other uses.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformativeness
Unfortunately, there have been no legal cases regarding distributing only subtitles for a fansub -- in every case thus far, the fansubbers were distributing a full copy of the work, which is obviously infringement. Distributing only subtitles would appear to fall under the concept of transformativeness, but I'm not positive yet.
Edit4: Alright, here's the gist.Assuming that the 2chan transcript is infringing on Studio Khara's copyright (it may not be, but I'm not concerned about that), our translation of this transcript falls under a transformative work, for the following reasons:
1. It is being translated into English, and no English translation exists.
2. It is being annotated and commented on.
Both of these are
very important in establishing the work as transformative. Another key point is that it is not being sold for profit or otherwise used commercially. Since I don't even ever intend to include ads on the roe2 site, we are way out of the range of commercial distribution of the work. This is likewise very important, but only in defense of the fair use. Regardless, the work is considered transformative and exempt.
The site specifically states that the project will halt when the official subtitles become available at the German film festival. This puts the project well into the legal safe-zone. In fact, if no one translating for the project reads the official subtitles, we will be able to continue translating (if we're not done by then).
tl;dr IT'S FINE. But we do need a license for the work, preferably Creative Commons or GNU Free Document. GNU Free Document is not ideal as it implicitly allows commercial use.
(I REALLY liked RMB's work with the 1.0/.11 subs, btw.)
