Wikisource talk:WikiProject The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi

The project page states: "Mahadev Desai who was the personal secretary of Gandhi died in 1942, so his translations are in the domain public". Are you sure about this? His translations are in the public domain in India (unless the source material is not), but because the US doesn't recogise the law of the shorter term, surely those dated 1923 or later will not be in the public domain in the US (?) --82.69.202.14 14:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Your claim that the US would not recognise shorter term is purely idle speculation. That alone is a very poor excuse for keeping Gandhi's work from the public. Nevertheless, Gandhi died in 1948, and his work would not normally go into the public domain in India until the end of 2008. From what I have read before India does not give additional rights for translations so we would only need to consider Gandhi's death as relevant. Before singing the mantra that the US does not recognize the shorter term, would it not be better to establish that the estate has standing to make the claim in the U.S. Eclecticology 16:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should first follow Indian copyright law for Indian documents. But India does recognize a translation as giving a copyright, although it is rarely enforced. See [1]. Yann 17:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference, but it still does not say that a translator receives a new copyright. Notably: "Is translation of an original work also protected by copyright? -- Yes. All the rights of the original work apply to a translation also." (emphasis mine) would suggest that Desai (translating with Gandhi's permission) would not receive a new copyright, but would have his copyright protected under the terms of Gandhi's own copyright. Where the translator predeceases the original author the date of his death should have not bearing on the expiry of the copyright. Eclecticology 17:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh oh, I didn't read it that way. That's very interesting and it opens a whole lot of works. Obviously, Gandhi's copyright would last longer than Mahadev Desai if that one exists. Yann 10:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

These books are republication of earlier published works. The date of the first publication is given for each volume. Yann (talk) 20:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)