By Han Sang-hee
Translating and selling even an abridgement without the permission of the original author constitutes a breach of copyright laws, the court ruled Sunday.
An appellate court in Seoul overturned a lower court’s non-guilty verdict, and sentenced a local publication company and its president with a 1 million won fine each for selling translated abridgments under contract with an American company.
The U.S. distributor has been selling abridgements of various books on the Internet without gaining prior permission or confirmation from the original writers.
``The local company may have translated the abridged versions of the original works purchased from the American company, but this poses a problem as the table of contents and the main content of the book are very similar to the original,’’ the court said.
The court said that even through the American company said there were no problems in terms of copyright issues, the local distributor should have confirmed whether the firm had received approval or any type of permission from the original authors.
The local company was previously indicted for selling translated abridgments it purchased from the American company in 2009.
The local distributor had been selling the abridgments for 2,000 won to 3,000 won after the U.S. firm said there was no problem with copyright issues since the works were original.
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