License of translations

The MSA of USC would like to acknowledge and thank the Islamic Computing Centre for providing the original file containing Yusuf Ali's and Marmaduke Mohammad Pickthall's translations. Their address is:

THE ISLAMIC COMPUTING CENTRE,

73 St. Thomas's Road, London N4 2QJ U.K.

Tel:(071) 359 6233

Fax:(071) 226 2024

The files you find here (that is, the translated chapters of the Qur'an) are NOT IN the Public domain, and the copy rights of the files still remain with The Islamic Computing Centre. It is NOT PERMITTED to distribute ANY OF THESE FILES for commercial (or profit) purposes.

We also wish to thank M. H. Shakir for his translation of the Qur'an which comes with the following message:

"These files are electronically scanned versions of M.H. Shakir's translation of the Holy Qur'an, as published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., P.O. Box 1115, Elmhurst, New York 11373. The text has passed through a preliminary editing, but is not yet error free. The authentic version of this translation remains the hardcopy offered by the aforementioned publishers, and can be purchased in many bookstores."

I've been looking into the copyright issue, and it is murky. I am not a Muslim, so I can make no useful comments about what is an acceptable version of the Qur'an on religious grounds. How does Islamic law treat the whole issue of copyright?

I understand that the Pickthall and Yusuf Ali are relatively more acceptable by Muslims than any earlier English translations. The translations that are viewed as even more accurate are also more recent, and the copyright problem would thus be more severe.

We can begin by considering United States law because that is where the server is located. Still, I don't think we really need to be concerned with copyright expiry under United States law unless these translations were first published in the United States, either alone or simultaneously. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I assume that this is not the case. United States law then allows us to look at the law for the country with which the author (translator in this case) had the grater connection.

For Pickthall the matter is easy. He was English throughout his life. He died in 1936. English law applies. His work retains copyright protection until the end of 2006.

For Yusuf Ali the matter is a little more confused. He was born in Bombay and died in London in 1952, but most of his work was done in Lahore. I would suggest that this implies that Pakistani law should be applicable. In principal Pakistan follows the Berne Convention rule that copyright expires fifty years after the death of the author. This means that this translation went into the public domain at the end of 2002. Eclecticology 19:39, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category: All pages