Don't Take a Translation Without Citing

If you read blogs like Japers' Rink and Pension Plan Puppets, then you know that there are community members who speak other languages and will from time to time run translations of stories written in, say, Swedish or Russian.

The other day Pension Plan Puppets had a translation of a Czech interview of Tomas Kaberle's father, available here. The story has since run with the Toronto Sun.

Except, the Sun didn't credit Pension Plan Puppets for the translation from Czech to English.

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but I'd guess there is some sort of intellectual right that PPP has to the translation. If not, then, at least it's ethical to cite your f'ing source. For projects and papers it's always a pain to do the bibliography, but now I feel dirty if I don't (living in Georgia, where international copyright does not apply). I'm not sure if plagiarism is the right word here, but it certainly was PPP's first.

And afterwards, TSN and no doubt other media outlets have run the story, crediting the Toronto Sun. At least Yahoo got it right.

Further reading: Broad Street Hockey, Pension Plan Puppets (part 1), Pension Plan Puppets (part 2)

Make sure you go through the comments as well.

On the bright side, thanks to Ted Leonsis' involvement in the online community, the chances of this happening in DC are close to zero, I'd say. Thanks, Ted.