Jane said incredulously, "Is what you said true?"
"Of course." Charles Pontier nodded smugly. "The Queen Anne's Act offers no protection whatsoever for translated publications. Lawyers can distinguish translated editions from pirated copies on the grounds that 'the translator has invested painstaking effort and labor.'
"France's Copyright Act, on the other hand, contains detailed provisions on the rights and responsibilities of translated works. We can sign an agreement on that basis."
The Queen Anne's Act was the United Kingdom's copyright law. In this era, the means and boundaries of copyright protection were still being explored, and it would take nearly half a century before they were tentatively refined.
Joseph, meanwhile, had directly based France's relevant laws on later generations' theories of copyright, making them nearly flawless.
This alone had allowed France's cultural publishing industry to grow far faster than those of other European nations.
Charles Pontier paused, looked at Jane, and probed, "What do you think? Would an authorization fee of two thousand Francs for the translated edition of First Impressions be acceptable?" Jane nearly blurted out, "Absolutely," but immediately coughed lightly, cutting off her excitement as she kept smiling. "I think that is a very fair price."
She was already calculating in her heart that such a large sum would be more than enough to bring her beloved sister to Paris to live with her.
But then another problem occurred to her, and she said with some difficulty, "Mr. Charles Pontier, I can translate an Italian edition, but German and Russian are beyond me.
"If you find others to translate those languages, how much will be deducted from the authorization fee?"
Charles Pontier froze. The two thousand Francs he had mentioned referred to the authorization fee for the French edition; editions in other languages had to be calculated separately