Open Data Vocabularies for Assigning Usage Rights to Data Resources from Translation Projects

Open Data Vocabularies for Assigning Usage Rights to Translation Memories David Lewis1, Kaniz Fatema, Alfredo Maldonado, Brian Walshe, Arturo Calvo 1ADAPT Centre at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, E-mail: dave.lewis@cs.tcd.ie, Abstract An assessment of the intellectual property requirements for data used in machine-aided translation is provided based on a recent EC-funded legal review. This is compared against the capabilities offered by current linked open data standards from the W3C for publishing and sharing translation memories from translation projects, and proposals for adequately addressing the intellectual property needs of stakeholders in translation projects using open data vocabularies are suggested. Keywords: Linked Data, Localization, Interoperability Standards 1. Introduction To successfully curate data resulting from translation projects so that they can be more widely exchanged and leveraged beyond that project, the issue of managing the ownership of different aspects of this data and controlling the uses to which they can be put must be addressed. The intellectual property rights associated with translations are complex and potentially impacted by a number of different national and international laws and treaties. The issue has grown in prominence as the use of translation memories (TMs) has become widespread, in particular as fuzzy match scores against client-provided TMs has become a common discounting mechanism in pricing translation projects. The ownership of the TM is sometimes specified in translation project contracts. This may be between clients with sensitivities about content leakage or mature TM asset management strategies and Language Service Providers, to which translation projects are typically subcontracted. TM transfer also occurs between LSP and freelancers or between large multi-language LSPs and small single-language LSPs. TMs resulting from work of salaried employees are typically assigned as the intellectual property of the employer as part of the employment contract. However, as many translators work as contractors there is some awareness in the professional translator community of the intellectual property that is relinquished when LSPs request that TMs are handed over along with the translated project (Johnson2006). In many such situations the ownership of TMs is not clearly defined. LSPs or individual translators sometime exploit this lack of clarity to store the TMs from projects they have translated for use in future projects, potentially even with different clients. The complex nature of translation value chains, e.g. involving outsourcing to multi-language LSPd and thence to single language LSPs who in turn use freelancers, contributes to this lack of clarity. TMs need to be passed along this value chain for it to work effectively, but this makes defining and monitoring the conditions under which TM are stored a complex and potentially expensive administrative task for the parties involved. Several factors may contribute to the lack of clarity of TM and other data asset rights in translation contracts. Clients translating content for publication on the web may have less concern about TM leakage (i.e. confidential content leaving their control due to translation outsourcing and being used elsewhere), at least not once the content has been posted. Smaller translation clients and LSPs often do not have …

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