Translation talk:Order No. 227 by the People's Commissar of Defence of the USSR

The English text is a translation of Order 270--Stalin's instruction that no Soviet forces should retreat before the German attack in WWII. Here is the original Russian text: http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7_%D0%9D%D0%9A%D0%9E_%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A0_%D0%BE%D1%82_28_%D0%B8%D1%8E%D0%BB%D1%8F_1942_%D0%B3_%E2%84%96_227

Naturally an English translation would prove useful for people who can't read Cyrillic. —unsigned comment by 24.87.136.31 (talk).


 * I have looked at the Russian text named "Приказ НКО СССР от 28 июля 1942 г № 227", and it matches this English text, so I believe that this page contains No. 227, not 270 as you suggest. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

mistake
800 million not pounds, but poods. Pood = 16 kilogramms.

license info
This document is an historical record quoted from an original governmental work. As such, the actual text (or translation thereof into english) is in the public domain and not subject to copyright. MattWilkins
 * Not all government documents or historical records are public domain. The original could be public domain in the United States only (which is good enough for Wikisource) as an edict of a government (see PD-EdictGov), but the translation needs to have been released into the public domain or under a free license. —innotata 17:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

This document originates from the former USSR and was released by that govermnment. Any literal translation of that document carries the same rights of use. The translation of a document does not, by the very nature of copyright law, create a new, freshly-protected work (since the licence or rights of the original are inherited by the subsequent translation) with its own protections. Otherwise, one could translate a copyrighted book into another language and then claim ownership of the copyright for the new version at the cost of the original author's rights. The public release of the text of Order 227 by its parent government is, from what I can tell, a de facto placement of the work into the public domain. The act of translation shouldn't alter that, and if the orginal was released to the public, any translation carries those rights as well. --Mattwilkins (talk) 20:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)