As reported in The Guardian, Pablo Katchadjian's 2009 remix of a Jorge Luis Borges story in El Aleph engordado has landed him in a heap of legal trouble.
The Guardian piece, by Fernando Sdrigotti, is tendentiously titled 'Re-working Borges is a legitimate experiment, not a crime', as he argues that this sort of literary experimentation is a good thing. While I agree with the premise, I note that copyright law (likely) prohibits this sort of thing with an in-copyright work (as Borges' story still is) -- i.e. it is a crime (hey, lots of silly things are) -- and that the argument: "when everything is reproduced and available to anyone clever enough to perform a web search" isn't exactly a winning counter/defense.
I think it remains a good idea for copyright holders to maintain as much control over their work as they wish (hence also my strong support for the often withheld copyright for translators) -- though there is no question that current copyright regimes linger way too long: so here also the problem is not long-dead Borges, who couldn't care less (or, as Sdrigotti suggests, might even approve) but rather his estate -- in the form of the widow Kodama and her enabler, estate-handler Andrew Wylie.
It might not be the worst thing if they threw the book at this guy and jailed him; over-the-top punishment might raise public awareness of how sillily extreme copyright laws have become and might help pare them back to more reasonable levels.
The Guardian piece, by Fernando Sdrigotti, is tendentiously titled 'Re-working Borges is a legitimate experiment, not a crime', as he argues that this sort of literary experimentation is a good thing. While I agree with the premise, I note that copyright law (likely) prohibits this sort of thing with an in-copyright work (as Borges' story still is) -- i.e. it is a crime (hey, lots of silly things are) -- and that the argument: "when everything is reproduced and available to anyone clever enough to perform a web search" isn't exactly a winning counter/defense.
I think it remains a good idea for copyright holders to maintain as much control over their work as they wish (hence also my strong support for the often withheld copyright for translators) -- though there is no question that current copyright regimes linger way too long: so here also the problem is not long-dead Borges, who couldn't care less (or, as Sdrigotti suggests, might even approve) but rather his estate -- in the form of the widow Kodama and her enabler, estate-handler Andrew Wylie.
It might not be the worst thing if they threw the book at this guy and jailed him; over-the-top punishment might raise public awareness of how sillily extreme copyright laws have become and might help pare them back to more reasonable levels.