University employee punished for distributing “Bygone Days” translation

The Ministry of Justice has reported that action has been taken regarding the copyright violation involving Mark Reese, the American translator and orientalist who translated Abdullah Qodiriy’s famous novel O‘tkan kunlar (Bygone Days) into English.

According to the report, Mark Reese appealed on social media, stating that his translation — a work he spent 15 years completing — was being distributed electronically without his permission.

Following the appeal, the Ministry of Justice conducted an inquiry at Uzbekistan State World Languages University. The investigation revealed that the work had been fully digitized and uploaded to the unilibrary.uz system without obtaining permission from Mark Reese and without any contractual agreement.

The inquiry revealed that the work had been fully digitized and uploaded to the unilibrary.uz system without Reese’s permission and without any contractual agreement. An official report was drawn up against the responsible university staff under Article 177¹ of the Administrative Liability Code (Violation of Copyright and Related Rights) and submitted to the court. The court fined the staff member 2,060,000 soums and ordered the electronic version of the work to be removed from the system.

To prevent future violations, the university organized a seminar on respecting copyright and related rights.

Additionally, under Article 65 of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights, Mark Reese has the right to claim compensation from the offender ranging from 20 to 1,000 times the minimum wage.

It is worth noting that earlier, several artists had also been fined for using poets’ works without permission. The Ministry of Justice warned that licenses of creators who violate copyright could be revoked.