Philosophy prof won't go to jail for making unofficial Derrida translations available to students

Horacio Potel, the Argentine philosophy professor who was facing a possible prison sentence for posting unauthorized translations of unavailable Derrida works for his students to read, has been exonerated by an Argentine court:

On 13 November, the Argentinean justice decided that Potel's actions did not justify penal prosecution, and he was declared free of charges, according to the Fundación Vía Libre, an Argentinean nongovernmental organisation focussed on civil rights in the digital area, who posted the court decision [pdf] on their website…

"In our legal system," Beatriz Busaniche of Vía Libre told Intellectual Property Watch this week, "this case will not be considered as jurisprudence, but the case as a whole helped us spread the word about copyright issues."

"One of the main results is that now social sciences universities here are aware of this conflict and really committed to open the debate around copyright," she said.

Restoration Of French Philosopher's Work Online In Argentina Seen As An Opening

(Thanks, Carolina!)

(Image: File:Derrida-by-Pablo-Secca.jpg, Wikimedia Commons)