Bravo to Victor,
I think he show just the right kind of sensibility that this sticky issue
presents.

-----Original Message-----
From: Victor Dewsbery [mailto:dewsbery@...]
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 8:35 AM
To: catmt@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [catmt] TM Ownership


Hi again David, a couple of interspersed comments:

----- Original Message -----
From: David Pooley
>
>The point I really wanted to make was that the customer-supplier
>relationship will probably govern whether you re-use the translations you
>have done and to what extent. I don't think that anyone can stop the
>translator from re-using but the good will of the customer may disappear.

Done responsibly, it could work the other way. I regularly get enquiries
from
potential new clients, and often they ask for references. I normally tell
them
that I work with TM - if they don't know what that means, I speak of
databases
that help me by automatically retrieving previous terminology and sentences
for
me to review when I work on a translation job.

When potential clients ask for references, they want to know what sort of
texts
I have worked on, what sort of terminology and sentences I am used to
handling.
They want to know that I have developed a certain routine (what's that?) in
certain areas.

My use of TM enables me to use tried and tested wording in a number of
areas.
For example, contracts generally contain a clause about what happens if any
provision in the contract is not legally valid. A couple of days ago I got a
100% match on a sentence in this clause although it was the first job I had
ever
done for a new client. In other words, I had developed a solution for this
sentence for another client yonks ago, and it happened to fit the current
text.
I do not consider that in any way unethical.

However, if the 100% match had concerned proprietary (and perhaps
confidential)
information about the products, services, pricing policy etc. of the clients
concerned, I would have had to be much more careful. This comes down to my
professional judgement, it is a question of ethics.

I do not jeopardise the good will of anybody by re-using text blocks about
invalid provisions, places of jurisdiction etc. that I have previously used
in
somebody else's text. In fact, my ability to retrieve solutions which I
created
by careful thought in a previous job represents a definite advantage in the
professionalism of all my work and a benefit to all my clients (even the
first
one).

>
>I don't think anyone would (or could?) begrudge the re-use of terminology
>but translation memory is different. However, I don't think it's possible
>to split terminology and translation memory easily!

OK, here's an anecdote you could use to hang me with.

A few months ago I did some work for two publications, each of which
contained a
number of articles and essays about buildings in Berlin. In one text I noted
a
surprising number of 100% matches and fuzzy matches, although the material
consisted of long prose sentences. I checked, and found that the same author
had
written for both publications, and that much of his material was identical
or
very similar.

I told both publishers what had happened. Neither seemed to regard it as a
tragedy, as the two publications were different in their general thrust and
just
happened to overlap at this one point. Neither of the publishers questioned
my
right to use a number of identical sentences in the two translations. (In
fact,
one asked me to give them a discount because I had done the work before!!!)

Anyone fancy picking the ethics of the incident to pieces?
It certainly did no harm to the good will of either publisher (at least, not
for
me - I don't know how they regarded the original author).

>
>As to how far I would seriously go .... well it really depends how well I
>know you ;-)
>Leave my leg alone

Only if you stop giving me the come-on !!!!!

Regards,
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Victor Dewsbery, B.A., BDÜ, MIL
D-13581 Berlin
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