Talk:Wait for Me (poem)

Latest comment: 1 year ago by A.S. Brown in topic text of poem

text of poem

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I have removed the text of the poem, in both Russian and English, from the article. Konstantin Simonov died in 1979 so the copyright has not expired and, if the English translation was not done by a Wikipedian, then that copyright is more recent that 1979. In any case, such units of text are more properly placed at Wikisource. Please take care when quoting text that is not free. Thanks, BanyanTree 19:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

The concept of copyright did not really exist in the Soviet Union. That explains the notable publishing fiasco of 1969 when two books appeared in English by different publishers who had purchased the exclusive rights to the story of Marshal Georgi Zhukov,, Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles and The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov; the only problem being that Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles and The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov are the same book. That led to a great deal of ligation as the publishers sued each for copyright violation. The origins of this was that the Soviets did not understand the concept of copyright because no such thing existed in the Soviet Union, which explains how they sold the exclusive rights for The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov, which had published in Russian in 1966, and an abbreviated version of the same book, which appeared in Russian in 1967, which was Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles to another publisher. Likewise, to counter the unflattening picture of Soviet intelligence in the James Bond books, the KGB had the Bulgarian writer Andrei Gulyashki write a novel, Avakoum Zahov versus 007, which featured Bond as a villainous psychopath who meets his comeuppance at the hands of a heroic Bulgarian policeman. That novel completely violated the copyright status to the James Bond character held by the estate of Ian Fleming. The KGB really hated the way they were portrayed in the Bond novels as oafish thugs of dubious personal hygiene, though Fleming always called them the MGB in his books as he was unaware that the Ministry of State Security had been renamed as the Committee of State Security in 1953. The name change was just cosmetic-the same people who were the MGB were the same people who were the KGB. When Avakoum Zahov versus 007 was published in English in 1969, the title was Avakoum Zahov versus 07, and the references to James Bond were removed owing to legal threats from the Fleming estate, though anyone reading the book can clearly see the murderous British spy who serves as the antagonist is supposed to be Bond. Both the Bulgarian and the Soviet authorities really did not seem to understand why the estate of Ian Fleming was upset about them violating their copyright to Bond. It is quite possible that Simonov never filed for copyright for his poem. The way that translations into various languages occurred so quickly might be related to the lack of copyright. This poem was first published in English in 1942 in London after being translated by a Austrian refugee who also translated it into German the same year. It might be worth looking into whatever he obtained the rights for it or not. I'm not certain about, but it is quite possible that this poem may be in the public domain owning to the absence of copyright in the Soviet Union. --A.S. Brown (talk) 04:31, 13 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Change Page Title

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I agree - tag it with {{move|Wait for Me (poem)}} - then move it, and create the redirect - Tiswas(t) 16:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)Reply