Since posting an article on crowdsourcing yesterday, I have uncovered this “gem” – an excerpt from Twitter’s Translation Agreement (hat tip to Angel Dominguez). This is the very agreement that volunteer translators are required to sign before having the privilege of translating Twitter.
Pay particular attention to the draconian proprietary rights clause.
Translation Agreement
Since you’ll be helping out Twitter (thanks again for that) we want to let you know our ground rules. Please read the full agreement below before continuing. Here are some of the things you can expect to see:
· We may show you confidential, yet to be released products or features and you must be willing to keep those secret.
· You’ll be volunteering to help out Twitter and will not be paid.
· Twitter owns the rights to the translations you provide. You are giving them to us so that we can use them however we want.
· Among other things, Twitter plans to share the translations with the Twitter development community. We want to help make all of the other great Twitter apps, not just Twitter.com, available in your language.
Thank you again for helping make Twitter easier to understand around the world! — The Twitter Team.
Community Translator’s Responsibilities
By clicking “I agree” or using the Twitter translation interface, you agree to provide translations in good faith and not to provide automated or inappropriate translations. You also agree to keep the content of the material you are translating confidential and not to blog, Tweet or otherwise tell others about it. Although you are responsible for the content and accuracy of each translation, Twitter reserves the right to review, reject, or remove any translation at any time for any reason in its sole discretion. You represent and warrant that all information you provide for the purpose of enrolling as a Community Translator will be accurate, complete and current.
Confidentiality
Features, functionality, text, graphics and other information visible through the translator interface may not be generally available to the public and all such features, functionality, text, graphics or other information shown through the translator interface are Twitter confidential information (“Confidential Information”). You agree to keep Confidential Information confidential, not to disclose Confidential Information to any other individual, organization or entity, and not to use Confidential Information for any purpose other than providing translations to Twitter.
Proprietary Rights
You acknowledge and agree that Twitter owns all legal right, title and interest in and to the text strings, including any intellectual property or other proprietary rights which may subsist in the text strings translated or the resulting translations (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). To the extent Twitter does not own all such right, title and interest, you hereby assign such rights, title and interest to Twitter. You therefore acknowledge that you have no intellectual property or other proprietary rights in such text strings translated or the resulting translations.
No Compensation or Employment
You understand that Twitter, other Twitter users, and the general public, may use your translations for any purpose. You acknowledge that you are providing these translations on a purely voluntary basis, as a means of assisting, and in consideration of the opportunity to assist, the Twitter community to use, implement, and understand various facets of the Twitter platform. Twitter makes no guarantee or representation as to whether or not your translations will be used, and you understand and acknowledge that Twitter will not compensate you for the translations that you provide. Furthermore, you acknowledge and agree that nothing in this agreement or in your voluntary submission of translations creates any employment relationship between you and Twitter.
I am speechless.
To me this is the fundamental difference between the world of high-tech and the world of translation. In my previous position, I was also required to sign a confidentiality agreement. This prevented me from sharing non-sensitive parts of my only significant accomplishment at the company, a 115 page user guide, with potential employers. Believe it or not if you are a technical writer this kind of agreement is not that uncommon. Twitter is writing in very legal terms that translators should be aware that what they are doing is on a purely volunteer basis and should not expect any benefits or even the right to use their work for other purposes. The reason they can not share their work is to prevent potential confidential information from leaking to competitors. When translating we like to believe that we have the rights to whatever we’re translating. If you are working for a high tech company (even on a volunteer basis) it is made very clear to you that you have no rights whatsoever. My question is how many potential translators take the trouble to read the agreement before signing it, and do they even care? To me these are the important questions we should be asking.