The (Hong Kong ) Standard has an Agence France-Press article ‘Sex-crazed dwarfs get pulled‘ about China Friendship Publishing Company and China Media Time that copied the erotic adaption of the Grimm brothers’ Fairy Tales by the Japanese duo Kiryu Misao.
Three comments to this racy story:
1. The excuse of Yuan, a China Media Time official “We couldn’t find the original German edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, so we took Japanese editions as our references and translated those” sounds like a fairy tale. The original German edition of the Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm can be found here.
2. The Kiryu Misao adaptation is a copyrighted work that was unauthorisedly copied by China Friendship Publishing Company and China Media Time. The only reason why this comes to the light is that the books were mistakenly put on the children’s bookshelves in some book shop(s).
3. Although the Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ copyright is expired, the work’s moral rights continue eternally. So the Grimm brothers’ heirs could file a lawsuit on this ground. See article 10 (4) Copyright Law: “the right of integrity, that is, the right to protect one’s work against distortion and mutilation”.
the moral rights should include the right to ensure the children's story isn't diluted with pornographic translations.