Ofer Tirosh

Copyright law protects artistic works. That includes literary pieces like novels, poems and other literary pieces. The original author is the one who owns the copyright of the piece. Translation raises an interesting question when it comes to copyright. Who will own the copyright of the translated work? Does it belong to the individual translator, the translation company, or to the author of the original work? Because copyright laws protect original works, translations occupy a gray area. Many would consider it to be a creative process, like the translation of poetry and other literary pieces. But then again, there are those who would contend that translation is not a creative process at all, or at least not at the same level as writing a novel. The main ideas of the work are already in place and it just has to be expressed in a different language.