empowering the specialized translator through data and technology, by kevin dias, tm-town

K E V I N D I A S

EMPOWERING THE SPECIALIZED TRANSLATOR

THROUGH DATA AND TECHNOLOGY

TAUS EXECUTIVE FORUM TOKYO 2016

DATA SHARING

TM-Town is a unique new site for you -- the

freelance translator -- to store, manage and share

translation memories (TMs) and glossaries.

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DATA SHARING

“Personally, I have no interest in TM-Town or in

'sharing' my translations, mostly for NDA-related

reasons”“My customers know of my firm commitment to privacy. What would they think if they saw my details in a website about sharing TMs and glossaries?”

“There are usually years of hard work behind translation

memories and I am only willing to share mine with a

selected group of colleagues when needed”

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DATA SHARING

1) What? 2) With whom?

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DATA SHARING

1) What?

- a translation memory file

- a glossary

- a term

- a source document

- a translation (target document)

- a terminology synopsis file*

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DATA SHARING

2) With

whom?- a machine

- a trusted colleague

- a client

- a 3rd party

- the public

- a machine

- a trusted colleague

- a client

- a 3rd party

- the public

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TRANSLATION DATA USE CASES

• Traditional concordance search

• Personalized machine

translation

• Translator discovery

• Predictive typing

• Productivity analysis

• …many more

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• Traditional concordance search

• Personalized machine

translation

• Translator discovery

• Predictive typing

• Productivity analysis

• …many more

TRANSLATION DATA – THE KEY TO BETTER MATCHING

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PUTTING THE PUZZLE PIECES TOGETHER

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The puzzle pieces:

• Traditional concordance search

• Personalized machine translation

• Translator discovery

• Predictive typing

• Productivity analysis

• Crowdsourcing and scheduling

• Real-time collaboration

• …many more

PUTTING THE PUZZLE PIECES TOGETHER

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NEXT GENERATION OUTSOURCING – CASE STUDY

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Project Manager

Needs: team of translators for an English to French “renewable

energy” government contract job

Problem: how to find a team of specialists for the job?

THE FUTURE

• Work is automatically routed to an individual or team of

translators with expertise in the specialized field- Work doesn’t just go to the first translator with their green light on

- Finds the expert(s) whose brain and TMs include this specialized knowledge

- Work in a translator’s wheelhouse can be done do 2x/3x faster because they

know the domain and the terminology

• Translator has access to real-time effortless collaboration

with peers in that specialized field

• Client gets a higher quality, more consistent translation

back in less time

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NDA VS. COPYRIGHT

• A nondisclosure agreement (NDA) typically protects a party

from disclosure and/or use of any Confidential Information.

• Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that

grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use

and distribution, usually for a limited time. The exclusive rights

are not absolute; they are limited by limitations and exceptions

to copyright law, including fair use.

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DETERMINING COPYRIGHT

• Copyright of a termbase or glossary created by the translator during the translation process is owned by the translator (with a few exceptions / gray areas)

• Determining who holds the copyright for translation memory is a legal gray area where the legislation has not caught up with the technology

Can the source or target text be reproduced from the translation memory?

Has copyright of the Translation Data been assigned back to the client in any written

agreement?

Is translation memory a database (legally speaking)?

Did multiple translators work on the creation of the translation memory?

Have the source and target documents been significantly altered in the creation of the

translation memory (i.e. through codes and tags added to segments)?

Are there different copyright holders for the translation memory structure vs. translation

memory content?

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DOES THE TRANSLATOR OWN THE COPYRIGHT OF A TRANSLATION MEMORY (TM)

CREATED DURING THE TRANSLATION PROCESS?

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

No

It depends

I'm not sure

Yes

* Based on an anonymous survey of 37 professional translators

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DATA SHARING – WHAT ABOUT MY NDA?

The Company and the Contractor agree not to disclose, regardless whether

for use for their own benefit or that of others, or not, any Confidential

Information either during or after the professional relationship, and will not at

any time during or subsequent to this agreement disclose or use in any way

any information or knowledge or data received or developed while working

with the Company or Contractor, including, but not limited to plans, lists,

prospects lists, and trade secrets of either the Company and/or its third party

clients or the Contractor, unless required by law.

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EVOLUTION

• Private vault

1 2 3

• Private vault + redact confidential terms

• Private vault + redact confidential terms + analyze offline

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A NEW TYPE OF TRANSLATION DATA

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FAIR USE – TRANSFORMATIVE USE

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TransformativenessFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In United States copyright law, transformativeness is a

characteristic of some derivative works that makes them

transcend, or place in a new light, the underlying works on

which they are based. In computer- and Internet-related

works, the transformative characteristic of the later work is

that it provides the public with a benefit not previously

available to it, which would otherwise remain unavailable.

FAIR USE – TRANSFORMATIVE USE

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• Courts have sometimes found copies made as part

of the production of new technologies to be

transformative uses

• Many commentators suggest that audio and video

mixes and remixes are examples of transformative

works, as well as other kinds of works that use

existing content to do unexpected and new things

DATA SHARING – A NEW TYPE OF TRANSLATION

DATA

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NDA

✓

✓

Copyright

CONCLUSIONS

• New innovations in job matching will lead to improved translation

quality and better supply chain efficiency

• The translation industry has only begun to scratch the surface on

uses and applications of new technologies

- It is not a zero sum game; all industry players (end clients, agencies,

translators) will benefit

• New offline analysis tools will help translators leverage their prior

work without infringing copyright law or NDAs

• For translators - specialized domain experts stand to prosper the

most from new innovations in job matching

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