Why Meta’s project to translate automatically between 200 languages will be stymied by copyright – Walled Culture

"Unfortunately, Meta’s grand vision is unlikely to be realised – because of copyright. Unless online material is released under a permissive licence such as the ones devised by Creative Commons, it will be necessary to obtain permission from the copyright holder before a full translation can be made using Facebook’s new tools. It will only take a few high-profile lawsuits from bullying publishers to frighten people away from daring to translate mainstream online articles into their own, poorly-served language without a licence.

And so, once again, copyright maximalism will throttle an exciting chance to make the world a better, fairer place by improving access to knowledge – and all to preserve the sanctity of an outdated intellectual monopoly...."