Quoting Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr):
> Arnoud Engelfriet [mailto:arnoud@engelfriet.net]
> > If I translate Shakespeare into Dutch, I fully own that translation
> > despite the fact that the English original is public domain.
> 
> You own only the translation, not the text itself or other derivative works
> such as adaptations to the cinema that your translation would have
> influenced but none of your sentences are kept. The base work still belongs
> to Shakespeare, which has fallen to the public domain.


Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our copyrights hasten to their end:
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all lawyers do contend.

    --- from some dead English guy's sonnet, slightly updated

-- 
Cheers,                                      "Reality is not optional."
Rick Moen                                             -- Thomas Sowell
rick@linuxmafia.com