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Sara Freitas France Local time: 22:05 French to English
There's an underlying business issue being ignored, here, IMO
May 2, 2011
I think there's an underlying business issue that is being ignored, here. If you want to position yourself at the high end of the market, it is really important in all of your communications with clients to focus on the business value you deliver (the WHAT). A lot of translators seem to focus on the HOW (their education, experience, tools, etc.). The how is irrelevant and is none of the client's business in most cases. If you use TM software or dictate your translations into a cassette recorder and have a transcriptionist type them out or carve your first draft into a stone tablet as part of your creative process for that matter, that's your business. Focusing on the HOW opens the door to all kinds of haggling and requests to turn over your intellectual property.
This makes me think of graphic designers asked to turn over their source files. Most good ones don't. Classic scenario where a client will pay top dollar for a great creative concept and then turn the execution work over to a cheaper designer (using the first designer's source files).
To get back to the WHAT, it sounds like your client wants the quality you deliver but with continuity of service you are unable to deliver. How could you change your approach to meet your client's needs? Train a trusted colleague on the projects for back-up (as someone suggested)? Draw up some kind of service-level agreement with the client where you would increase your availability (in exchange for a suitable increase in financial compensation)?
Try to dig a little deeper and find out how you and your client can work together to meet his needs without turning over your intellectual property.
[Edited at 2011-05-02 11:25 GMT]
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bodi_jelen wrote:
Any (generic) terminology that you have in your translation memory is your property under the EU law. With the exception of terms and phrases that are copyrighted and thus owned by the client (trademarked). No one has the right to demand anything from you in this respect.
Can you please report what law and article you mean? This would be most interesting for the whole community.
Ouch!
I had hopped to the forum for a moment or two and then back to work again, and the thread had left my mind for good the instant I took my eyes off it ... For what it's worth, here's my belated reply (copy paste below) - may be useful to other colleagues.
>(39) Whereas, in addition to aiming to protect the copyright in the original selection or arrangement of the contents of a database, this Directive seeks to safeguard the position of makers of databases against misappropriation of the results of the financial and professional investment made in obtaining and collection the contents by protecting the whole or substantial parts of a database against certain acts by a user or competitor;<
>Provided a set of data comes within the definition of a database, it will qualify for protection in its own right under the Regulations (irrespective of whether it benefits from protection under copyright) if there has been a "substantial investment" in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of the database.
Investment includes "any investment, whether of financial, human or technical resources" and substantial means "substantial in terms of quantity or quality or a combination of both".
The maker of a database is defined as the person who "takes the initiative in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of a database and assumes the risk of investing in that obtaining, verification or presentation" and such person is the first owner of the database right. This definition is in contrast to that of an owner in copyright since where a database is commissioned, the commissioner will usually be the "maker" and first owner of the database right. If the database is made by an employee in the course of his employment, the employer will be regarded as the maker and therefore the owner of the database right subject to any agreement to the contrary.
A person infringes a database right if they extract or re-utilise all or a substantial part of the contents of a protected database without the consent of the owner. It should be noted, however, that extracting or re-utilising a substantial part of the contents can result from the repeated and systematic extraction or re-utilisation of insubstantial parts of the contents of a database.<
[Edited at 2011-12-06 18:58 GMT]
[Edited at 2011-12-06 19:00 GMT]
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