More Creativity and Less Restriction: About the Relationship between Translation and Copyright

Abstract

This article discusses the importance of adjusting the attitude toward the copyright of translation, taking the articles in United States Copyright Law and the Berne Convention as the reference. By looking into various incidents and examples in translation across different languages and areas, and among licensed and voluntary translator communities, the article discusses the significant amount of creative labor and intellectual work in the translation and why less restriction from the original work’s copyright can lead to quality improvement in translation. The article concludes that creativity takes an influential role throughout the translation process, and an environment with fewer restrictions from the copyright holder of the original work can boost the average quality of the translations. Hence, society can fully benefit from U.S. copyright law’s core purpose of promoting “the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”