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The Rape of Europe(Reasoned Introduction)
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General license of translation
The recognition of the rights specific to an author depends on the will of the individuals, rather than of the laws. In the case of a translatable work, whose universal scope necessarily depends on its translation, the people's rights to use their own language circumscribe the author's trusteeship. The best protection is achieved when enough reasonable conditions can be, at the same time, defended by the author, and respected by the participants. These conditions are the object of the first document: the General License of Translation, or GLT.
An author who publishes his work according to terms of the GLT recognizes equal rights to participants who exhibit on Internet their own versions of the author's work. Across the translation, the license authorizes the right of version, that is, any derived, adapted or transformed expression that contributes to the universal diffusion of the work. Such a right is known reciprocal and associative, it can start from any exhibited version on Internet. The license defines as version any version of the work, including the original version, and it affirms that the author's and participants' rights are the same on their respective versions. The GLT works within the strict framework of the intellectual property laws, but it reaffirms the natural people's right to benefit from the work by using their own language and expression. However, the acceptation of the participants' rights equality does not mean that the author will renounce to his trusteeship on the work, and this acceptation only takes effect when the participants' versions are exhibited on Internet.
To clarify this assertion, it is worth to make the difference between the work and its versions. What we call has work is an ideal and indissociable concept of the author's personality and of some form of reputation. As such, the work of an author cannot be the subject of a transaction, just like pure ideas or the dignity of individuals are free of rights. On the other hand, the version of work is an object registered on a media, either a factual (material) media, or a simple right (date of first publication, serial number). This concept can summarize the following formula: a work is translatable, whereas a version is always a translation. According to this formula, which we call an original version is just the first translation of the work, for which the same person is both author and translator. Rather than the work itself, a version is just goods for which all kinds of rights may be sold, exchanged or acquired. Starting from the GLT, this license recognizes the equality of the commercial rights associated with each of the versions exhibited on Internet. However, the moral authority, the trusteeship, performed by the author on the work remains complete and absolute. For example, the author always keeps the exclusive power to to give authorization to define the exploitation of the work outside Internet. Under the GLT, there is no conflict between the author's trusteeship and the participant's rights to make versions, because Internet has been selected as an exhibition site of the participated versions. Actually, the choice of Internet simplifies the situation radically: the GLT evacuates from the debate the commercial rights, which exist only outside the Internet, in order to focus on the author's legitimacy.
The GLT reaffirms the author's trusteeship on the work. The author is the guarantor of the work as a whole, he exercises his authority by following his personal and unitary assessment, that is, the trusteeship is indissociable from the author's personal judgment and individual circumstances. The GLT reaffirms the author's authority by using an arbitration clause. This means that the GLT leaves outstanding any decision relating to the exploitation of work outside of Internet. As a general rule, the GLT suspends the commercial exploitation of all the versions of the work, in all countries, all languages and all medias if they do not contribute to the exhibit the work on Internet.
The GLT recognizes the participants' right of version and their equal rights on their respective versions, when exposed on Internet. Traditionally, it was necessary to request the author's agreement to exhibit and, in practice, to even create any version of the work. Now, any exhibited version may become the master of a new version, following independent criteria from the author's criteria, since the resulting version is exhibited on Internet. With the recognition of the right of version, the ability and independence of participants is also recognized. As well, the exhibition on Internet opens the door to the public criticism, because only interested people may grant his favors to a specific version among others. The same license that supports the universal diffusion of the work, also means to accept the otherness of the human expressions, subject to only one obligation: they must be exhibited on Internet.
The space commonly called "Internet" acquires thanks to the GLT a determining and contractual dimension. The GLT takes the definition of Internet from the RFC 99999, which coincides exactly with the Internet© visibility modifier. This modifier is used in declarations of intellectual property, in order to authorize the transformation, but not the reproduction of the exhibited work. In practice, this declaration functions like a territorial restriction, because it prohibits the reproduction of work in all the countries. Here, the GLT is interesting because it involves a lawful occupation of the Internet© scope. The universal coverage and the legal force in all the countries of the recognition of participant's version right and rights equality, are a necessary consequence of the requirement to expose the work on Internet. The GLT appears as the premise of a social contract, where participants define Internet like the exclusive scope of this version agreement, and convert it into a legal space, according to a process that we describe as "retrospective", with a double meaning. Firstly, because the participants are lawfully capable citizens in their own countries. Secondly, because neither the author, neither the participants transfer nor renounce to the rights, owned or recognized, on their respective versions.
Designed in founders terms, the GLT rediscovers on Internet a privileged cultural space and reaffirms the universal validity of two Utopias: ideas are not proprietary, and the own language is a natural right for individuals. Each time that a work adopts the general license of translation, it takes share with the legal occupation of Internet, which is made possible by virtue of a reality which is impossible to circumvent: Internet is inhabited.
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