In 2012 I posted 41325 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41325), a Japanese translation of Christopher Morley’s “The Haunted Bookshop”. The submission was accompanied by this letter:

Michael S. Hart

Founder, Project Gutenberg

405 West Elm Street

Urbana IL, 61801-3231, USA

Dear Project Gutenberg:

I am the sole copyright holder for the book, "Yureishoten" (Japanese

translation of "The Haunted Bookshop" (1919) by Christopher Morley).

I offer this work as public domain. (This gives up all rights,

including that other people could reprint or profit without my

permission or involvement or royalties.) It gives me pleasure to

grant Project Gutenberg perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive rights

to distribute this book in electronic form through Project Gutenberg

Web sites, CDs or other current and future formats. No royalties

are due for these rights.

Sincerely,

Kiyotoshi Hayashi

(I removed his email address for privacy.)

I don’t know who drafted/suggested the letter for inclusion in the submission—probably Greg. Something like it should be sufficient for PG’s purposes, but that would be Eric’s determinatioin.

From: Lee Passey via gutvol-d <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org>
Sent: January 5, 2026 5:24 PM
To: Walt Farrell via gutvol-d <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org>
Cc: Lee Passey <lee@novomail.net>
Subject: [gutvol-d] Re: Translation

Also be aware that translations are copyrightable even if the source material is out of copyright. In The United States copyright is actually very hard to avoid. Failing to claim a copyright is not enough, you must explicitly *disclaim* one. Even then it may be possible to revoke the disclaimer. If you go ahead, be sure to preface your translation with:

· The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

· You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

On 1/5/2026 6:18 AM, Walt Farrell via gutvol-d wrote:

As Eric mentioned, Proofreading happens at Distributed Proofreaders, not at Project Gutenberg.

And at Distributed Proofreaders we do not do translation. We work only on published books that are old enough to no longer have copyright protection in the United States. If you did want to translate a book, you would need to:
1. Find a book without copyright protection in the US.
2. Clear that book with Project Gutenberg's Copyright team.
3. Translate it, and declare your translation to be in the Public Domain (copyright-free)
4. Convert your translation into a form suitable for Project Gutenberg to publish.
5. Upload the translation to Project Gutenberg yourself.

Distributed Proofreaders would not be involved in any of that; it would be entirely your own effort.

Best wishes, and thanks for your interest,
Walt
On 1/4/2026 12:29 PM, Selin Doğru via gutvol-d wrote:
Hello Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Selin. I've decided to do volunteering as a proofreader in Gutenberg Project. I've completed necessary parts and ready to be part of the projects! I want to make more contributions. Translation is another area, i'm motivated, enthusiastic and experienced about.
I want to make translations for this project, my native language is Turkish and i can translate Turkish to English, English to Turkish.

I'll be waiting for your reply..
Have a great day!