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: : : How to handle the customer who wants your terminology to give to other translators (agencies) to insure consistency as the volume of work to be translated grows too large for one to complete in the time scheduled. -Your words cannot be found in online dictionaries. -Other translators who have not invested the years of working in the specific field will not know the words. It is your bread and butter! But now for the good of the customer and the product, you must provide the terminology db to others. What protections are available? : : : A.) Give it to him and perhaps lose or "shorten" your job : : : B.) Sell it to him and perhaps lose your job (others are now faster) : : : C.) Don't do it and lose your job : : : D.) Share in the transmission to other translators? i.e., negotiate a : : : percentage of its use by others? Negotiate a long term contract for translation work? How? Any sample successful, contracts out there? Your experiences please. : : : Thanks in advance. : : Glenn, that's one of the most interesting questions anyone has asked for quite some time. : : I actually can't give you the black and white answer you would probably like to have. But maybe I can thrash around some thoughts. : : At the end of the day it totally depends on the relationship and history you have with the client. If the client is worth several thousand a year to you, it is in your interest to do everything you can to protect that relationship - take his children to school if he asks you to! : : If it is a new client and you don't know them well, you would obviously want to be a lot more cautious. : : So, taking your options one by one... : : A) Give it away : : I would be very reluctant to give away something as valuable as that. I assume you are talking about a large personal glossary that you have compiled over the years or a translation memory database? : : Frankly, it totally depends upon the relationship you have with the client and the tools they already own. : : If the client owns a translation memory package they could quite easily extract this information for themselves from all your previous work with them - and give it to the others without your permission. This seems to be a very grey area of copyright law because the technology is so new. : : There is a very circular argument which goes something like this... : : According to the international copyright laws, a translator owns copyright in the translated text... : : But a translation is a derivative work of the original document, so theoretically the original copyright holder owns the rights to it - unless permission and agreement has been obtained for the translation to be done. : : But the translation memory/DB is a derivative of a derivative, which makes the already muddy waters even muddier. There will no doubt be some test cases ina few years when the technology becomes mature enough to be in widespread use. : : : : B) Sell it : : This option is better if you can get the right balance and you have a trusting relationship with the client. How many people is he allowed to send copies of your DB to? i.e. how many licenses are you selling? : : Some of the newer firms actually incorporate glossarisation as part of the job (and pay an extra fee for it). You then build a glossary as you go along, which can be used for future work. : : I have one such client for whom I do US --> UK localisation of large web sites. They usually allow a few hours time for glossary building. This is paid for and it is obviously understood that it may/will be used for future work (by them, me or someone else - I don't care - I got paid for it). : : I think you are probably talking about a much bigger thing. If you are really talking about a large DB then you should expect quite a lot of money for it. Realistically it is worth a lot more to you than someone else will probably be willing to pay you for it, so selling it may not be a viable option. : : C) Don't do it : : This is certainly a viable option when you don't trust the client. But having said that, if you don't trust them - don't work for them unless they pay you in advance! : : You are right though, if the client asks you for something and you don't do it, you can probably consider them an ex-client unless you can explain things to them really well. : : D) Sharing - royalties : : Very hard to enforce this. It would only work when there is complete trust. Even then - if the client licenses 5 copies from you, how do you ensure that each of the 5 people do not give out 5 more copies? Unless you spend a lot on copy protection you can't enforce this at all. :( : : D2) Long-term contract : : This is something I have not ventured into as I don't like to be tied down. For us, each new job is a separate contract and that's the way we like it. It gives us the freedom to say no thank you when we are busy, need time off or want to do other things. : : The part of freelance which I like the best is the FREE part. : : I think long-term contracts can potentially make you a virtual employee [which I see as a step backwards]. If you structure it right, though I guess it can work out well. : : Alex : : <img src=../../images/alexsig.gif> : I agree strongly with Alex that this is both a major new headache in legal terms and you should definitely not give anything away that has cost you so much time (i.e. money). : Other suggestions: : A. Negotiate a percentage of the margin the client will make in the future with the product. Maintaining the vital trust that Alex refers to, but also encouraging the client to see this as a sales tool, rather than just a cost. : B. Make the glossary into a sellable product and market it yourself. : C. Form a specialised translation group and charge a royalty to other translators : Let us know what happens : John