TRANSLATIONS IN THE MEDIA SPOTLIGHT
The Royal Thai Police arrested two people on Sunday for allegedly violating the Kingdom's Computer Crimes Act by supposedly re-posting media reports surrounding the decline in the Stock Exchange of Thailand more than two weeks ago. For more analysis and reports you might want to check Bangkok Pundit, The Nation and the Wall Street Journal.
Much has already been written, however one point that has been totally missed is what these two people are supposed to have done - publish word-for-word translations of foreign news reports - is a breach of copyright. (See ADD below).
In the case of the Bloomberg news report I have to declare an interest because that company recently announced a deal to purchase the BusinessWeek brand. I'm working for the company which has the rights to the BusinessWeek brand in Thailand, so when the deal is finally concluded and BusinessWeek and Bloomberg are one entity any word-for-word Thai language translations would have a direct commercial impact on my company.
I understand this might seem harsh in the big picture of what's happening now, but I can tell you for a fact that some of the world's leading English language publishers are taking much more of an interest in the Thai language media because incidents such as what is suggested to have happened here are happening constantly.
Ultimately I think it will just take one publisher's legal enforcement of their copyright in Thailand to bring this matter to much greater prominence.
ADD: Bangkok Pundit has pointed out that these examples were not word-for-word translations. One was about half and the other was four lines, he says. There is no clear definition in Thai law of how much of an original story can be translated (without additional comment) before it becomes a copyright infringement. Several lawyers I have spoken to suggest it would likely be in the 80-90 per cent region.
Colleagues have shown me examples, both in regards to this news and on other occasions, where word-for-word translations have been published on Thai language websites and by the Thai language media. And as The Nation says today with regards to the current incident : "The post combined Bloomberg news in English and the translation in Thai, paragraph by paragraph."
It happens a lot.
3 comments:
I think these particular translations (whether word for word or not), posted on a web forum, would fall within the "fair use" exception to copyright infringement.
Hi BKK,
If it is a complete word-for-word translation without additional comment it would NOT be classed as "fair use", just as if I chose to publish a word-for-word translation of, for example, the lead story in Thai Rath.
There are certainly ways around it though, such as paraphrasing the original story.
Thai language word-for-word translations of stories from The Economist have appeared recently on several Thai language websites, and I know for a fact that the publisher has sought to have them removed for a breach of copyright.
I will add that the law regarding translations and fair use is not clear. It really does need a publisher to take legal action so a prescendent can be established.
Thanks for your comments, they're much appreciated.
BB: You're right: the web sites that regularly feature Thai translations of English articles -- not for the purpose of commenting on them but for the purpose of presenting them in full for their own readers -- are probably infringing (and indeed have been asked to cease and desist). The distinction I didn't make so clearly was that the two incidents in the news this week were just private posters on a big forum/mail board. I think they would pass as fair-use.
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