Recorded Renditions, Intellectual Property, Some Interpreters’ Great Contributions, and Some Unfortunate Ones.

Dear Colleagues,

When it was announced that Zoom had added a function to automatically record the interpreter’s rendition without prior notice, consent, or agreement on royalties, I originally decided not to write on this issue as it seemed in good and able hands who understand the implications, have the “know how” to address the needed changes, and can clearly communicate our professional needs to the platforms and others. My view has not changed, but I jumped in due to some remarks I have seen in social media and elsewhere. To contribute to the better understanding of the problem by many of our colleagues, I decided to encapsule the current situation in three main points: (1) What is happening; (2) What is protected; and (3) What needs to happen (and in fact is already happening).

• What is Happening. A couple of months ago Zoom introduced a new function that allows the recording of everything said during a meeting (or conference) including the interpretation of the original speech. This is done automatically, and lets the host of a recorded event go back to the video and toggle between the original sound and its interpretations into other languages. These recorded renditions remain available as a separate audio, leaving the host with the option to widely share the interpreters’ rendition without them even knowing. Notice, consent, and a royalty agreement are not needed to “benefit” from this function, leaving the interpreters, real owners of the interpretation, in a vulnerable position.
• What is protected. An interpretation is the product of an intellectual task protected by International Law as a property right. Human progress and evolution need the intellectual contribution of scientists, engineers, artists, and other individuals who create something of value. Such creations are considered intellectual property and include patents, trademarks, and copyrights, which include the work product of interpreters and translators. These rights are protected by (A) International Conventions, such as the Universal Copyright Convention, adopted in Geneva in 1952, and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 (amended in 1979); (B) Bilateral Agreements between sovereign nations, such as trade agreements which often include provisions, and even entire sections dedicated to the protection of Intellectual Property Rights; and (C) Domestic Legislation applicable to all activities within a country, as it is the case of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives Congress the power to “promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” And its secondary law: The Copyright Act of 1976 (Title 17 USC). Therefore, in most countries in the world, a rendition by an interpreter is considered their property and protected as copyright.  This means that a rendition cannot be legally reproduced or shared by anybody, unless the interpreter, who owns the interpretation, agrees and consents to it; and even in this case, it can only be reproduced according to the limitations set by the interpreter (how many times, in what market, by what means, and for what compensation). The agreement to record and replay a rendition must include a compensation provision establishing amount to be paid and form of payment to the interpreter: a percentage as royalties, a lump sum before recording, or a donation of the royalties by the interpreter when they consider it appropriate (charity work, research, education, religious, etc.)
• What needs to happen. It is clear that Zoom (and perhaps other platforms when catching up) incorporated this function to its platform to make it more attractive to its users and consumers. The idea was to solve a problem: How to reach those individuals watching a recorded event, after its original broadcast, who do not share the speaker’s language. Zoom learned in the past that the platform was more competitive when it reached a worldwide audience, regardless of language limitations. They tried to remove the language barrier by launching their original interpretation function. Later, the listened to their customer’s needs and to the interpreters’ expert feedback and improved the functionality several times. No doubt the results pleased them. They noticed how their competitors also made those changes to remain viable in the market. Unless Zoom acted out of character, or there is an anomaly I am not aware of, it is obvious to me that they never considered breaking the intellectual property laws. They meant no harm to their clients or to the interpreter community.

From the interpreters’ perspective the solution does not seem complicated. A toggle button permitting activate and deactivate the recording function would bring them in compliance with the law, but changes to a platform are not cheap and they require of more than a simple patch in the software. Everything I have heard to this point is encouraging. Some of the most serious professional associations that protect service quality and working conditions of conference interpreters, and some very able, capable, and knowledgeable colleagues have initiated an ongoing dialogue with the platform, and if the past is any indication of the future, in time this problem will be resolved.

What to do meanwhile? The answer is simple, we must continue to include in our contracts the same recording provision we have inserted for years, even when our concerns had to do with being recorded in the booth. Those who have never included such protection clause, and I must confess I find it amazing that interpreters agree to sign contracts lacking any agreement on recording their rendition, start now; insert a clause that clearly states that no recording shall be possible without all interpreters’ consent in writing, detailing all negotiated conditions, including the payment of royalties. There are model contracts you can use as a starting point, and I suggest you talk to an attorney. As for negotiating with the client or event organizer, read and learn about intellectual property, and use AIIC’s memorandum concerning the use of recordings of interpretations at conferences of 2016. It will give you plenty of arguments to negotiate with your clients. Litigation is expensive and lengthy, and should be kept as a last option, but these negotiations and a good contract will also act as a deterrent.

As a practical matter, I also suggest you do what I do: Take advantage of the dry run session to bring up the subject with all present; briefly explain what you need (that no recordings be shared without your consent and compensation) the risk of breaking Intellectual Property Law, and the message you are part of their team, and are trying to protect them by pointing out these scenarios before it is too late. Then, on the day of the event, let the host know that at the beginning, as they are explaining how to use the simultaneous interpretation function, you will post a message to all those attending, reminding them that sharing the recording of an interpretation violates the law, even if the platform technically lets you do it. It has always worked for me.

I cannot end this posting without mentioning that despite all great letters and conversations our professional associations and some of our distinguished colleagues have held with Zoom, directly and on social media, there are some unfortunate comments and postings by others that hurt our efforts because they perpetuate the stereotype that we are not really professionals. I am referring to some comments on line about the “damage to us as interpreters” the “burden it creates” or the threats to “bring a class action lawsuit” against Zoom.

I say to all of you, even though these platform changes can impact all interpreters who use Zoom as a tool, it is really conference interpreters who could see a quantifiable effect in their professional practice. Court interpreters’ rendition is part of a public record, and healthcare, school meetings, client-attorney virtual meetings, and other community interpreting services, could have a confidentiality/privilege problem, an unrelated issue to recording an interpretation in a conference, but their interpretation do not face the problem these posting deals with.

Professional communications, as the ones required in this case, should focus on the task and show the perspective of all involved. Complaining about how a recording will hurt you, and asking the platform to solve your problems and protect you because of “poor me” do not help one beat. Fighting words directed to the platform because now you “have to write a contract to protect you” do a disservice to the profession; Talking about class action lawsuits without knowing what is required, how complex, expensive and lengthy they are is just another way to show you are not acting like a professional well-informed in the business world. In conclusion, I am fine, I believe there has been progress that will eventually solve this issue, and the involvement of those participating in the dialogue has been very good.

What ever happened to the written federal court interpreter exam?

Dear colleagues:

With all the noise and frustration surrounding the oral federal court interpreter examination fiasco, we have overlooked a group of colleagues left out in the cold with no updates and plenty of confusion: The candidates studying to take the written federal court interpreter certification exam scheduled for the summer or 2018. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) has been silent for many months and interpreters are concerned, puzzled, and they do not know what to do.

The AO’s official website redirects you to Paradigm’s webpage which shows this message: “Written examination registration dates will be announced in the spring of 2018, test locations will be announced at that time.”

This message has remained intact for months; no updates, no explanations, no changes.

In the weeks since my last widely read post on the oral exam, and despite all the comments by those who took the test in 2017, many federally certified court interpreters, and colleagues in general, raising serious concerns everywhere in social media about the judgment of those AO officials who hired Paradigm, and the lack of transparency and accountability after the administration of the test, the authorities who oversee the administration of the exam have done nothing to keep those who plan to take the written test during the summer of 2018 informed.

Apparently, silence continues to be the only policy coming from the federal judiciary. Our colleagues who plan to take the written exam do not know what to do. They do not even know if they should stop studying. Because from the lack of information they cannot even tell if there will be a written exam this year.

We do not even know for sure if the AO has severed its ties with Paradigm. There has been no official notice, and their own website continues to redirect all users who want information on the written exam to Paradigm’s website which shows outdated information where it claims that registration dates “…will be announced in the spring of 2018…” If this information is valid as of today, they better hurry up and publish the information before spring is no more.

I cannot help it but feel sorry for those whose lives have been on hold for several weeks while they wait to find out the exam dates and locations in order to make personal and professional arrangements to travel to the test sites.

If the exam has been postponed until further notice, please tell the interpreting community; if Paradigm is no longer the contractor for the written exam, please tell the interpreter community; if no details can be shared at this time because of pending litigation, please tell the interpreter community; If the negligent administration of the oral exam in 2017, and the decision to retest so many people will push the written exam into 2019, and if this will disrupt the regular 2-year cycles of  both oral and written exams, please tell the interpreter community.

This will make you look better and it will be a way to begin the road to recover credibility and trust. Remember, it is about transparency and accountability. Those at the AO must never forget they are the government. Those with the misfortune to take the oral test last year, and the ones suffering the uncertainty of the written test right now are the taxpayers.

We cannot lose sight of this unquestionable reality; dear friends and colleagues, we are protecting the profession, but we are also exercising our rights. To the handful of colleagues who feel intimidated by those who argue that the certification is not an entitlement and try to mask ineptitude and negligence when hiring Paradigm as a “technical difficulty”: Perhaps when you work within the government system for a long time you think that the federal government is some kind of a magnanimous god who favors court interpreters, also U.S. citizens, by granting them a certification. Do not be distracted by comments like the ones above. The real issue is transparency and accountability. The AO should come clean and explain why they hired Paradigm, admit fault, apologize, and communicate the way they plan to remedy this chaos, not only by telling those who took the exam they will now have a chance to retest. They must talk to those who want to take the written exam, and to the professional community.

Threats about pulling the exam are awful, distasteful, and baseless. The government cannot force the professional community into silence by threatening cancellation of the Spanish federal court interpreter certification program. They have not, and will not. These comments never came from an official source and should confuse no one. Navajo and Haitian-Creole certification programs were scratched because of docket and financial reasons. Spanish is used in all U.S. courts more than all other foreign languages combined. There is no rational justification to do something like that, so please ignore these rumors.

It is also important to remember that almost nobody who takes the federal court interpreter exam wants a guarantee to work in court. Sometimes staff court interpreters must be reminded that a federal certification is a means to prove skill and knowledge to many clients. The majority of the high-income earner interpreters I know make the bulk of their fees outside of court and work with a district court, making far less money, when they have no other assignment, or for personal reasons. A candidate who pays a fee to take a test has a right to demand performance in exchange for the fee. It is a service based on contractual obligations.

It is also of concern that people who are involved with voicing NAJIT’s policy or opinions have stated that this association with many members who took the oral test, who are waiting to take the written test, and who are voicing their anger with the way the AO has performed during this crisis, can claim that the Association has “no dog in that fight”. To be fair, this unfortunate comment came not from NAJIT’s Board and it has not been endorsed by the Association either.

Dear friends and colleagues, those of us who did not take the exam because we are already certified, or because our working languages do not include Spanish, or even those who practice our profession in other fields with nothing to do with the court system have a duty to defend and protect the profession, and a right to support our colleagues who were, and continue to be, affected by this negligent and careless actions. Resorting to smoke and mirrors like injecting Seltzer v. Foley is just a diversion tactic that will not work. That case questioned the rating criteria of the written exam; here the question is the ineptitude and negligence of those who hired Paradigm as the contractor in charge of administering the test, and the actions taken after the fact. Nobody has questioned the validity of the exam, nor the integrity of the raters. I have even said that I do not believe there was bad faith or the deliberate intent to cause harm by AO officials. All we are arguing is apparent negligence and ineptitude, and for that we are demanding transparency and accountability.

Implying that I have questioned the validity of the exam or the integrity of the raters only shows those who claim such things, and argue that people are angry because they did not pass the exam (even though no test results were out when these claims circulated in social media) have spread rumors without reading my posts.

Just like in other cases before: accreditation vs. certification of healthcare interpreters, exploitation of immigration court interpreters by a new language contractor, the court interpreter fiasco in the United Kingdom, the contractual and managing problems of the court interpreter program in New Mexico, abandoning the interpreters in conflict zones by Western Nations, the exploitation of telephonic interpreters by unscrupulous VRI service providers, and many others, I have no vested personal interest in these cases; it is nothing personal against government officials, language services agency owners, or professional associations; I just stand up, and will continue to stand up for the profession. I now ask you to share your comments on the written federal court interpreter exam of 2018. Please remember, personal attacks, disqualifications, foul language and surrogate defense of Paradigm, NAJIT, or the AO will not be posted.

An Ethical Myth: As Interpreters and Translators “We Are Not Allowed to Talk Fees”.

Dear Colleagues,

For many years I have heard colleagues say that we cannot talk about what we charge. I have seen how a simple question about price can turn the sweetest colleagues into the meanest medieval executioners. The reason for this behavior? Someone told somebody a long time ago that it was illegal to talk about what we charge as professionals.  I must confess that this “ethical principle” (not compiled anywhere by the way) has always bother me, but after seeing how a simple question about fees turns interpreters into the Incredible Hulk, for a long time I kept my mouth shut, I looked the other way.

The thing is, I cannot do it anymore!  The more I teach about interpreter ethics, the more I see how this myth has done a disservice to the profession.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to free speech to all individuals in this country. It has no limitations except for the ones set by the Court (You cannot scream “Fire!” inside a movie theater) and by the law: civil and criminal liability in cases of libel or slander.  Out of these exceptions, free speech is probably the most cherished human right in the world.

According to the United States Constitution,  Can I go around talking about my interpretation and translation fees with everybody? Yes I can! But, Why did they tell me that it was against the law and that I could lose my court certification if I did?  Because of a misunderstanding.  The law prohibits monopolies, it is illegal to fix prices for goods and services. The market should decide how much my services are worth.  In other words, I can talk about my fees with all my colleagues, clients, relatives, etc., I can even advertise them on line, over the phone, on TV, and the list goes on.  The thing we cannot do is get together and decide on a universal price for a service. Fixing prices is against the law. But, if you just talk about fees, even if more than one interpreter or translator ends up charging exactly the same,  there is nothing to worry about.

Think of it this way: Gas stations sell the same product, they advertise their prices on the road for everybody to see, they are often next to each other, and may times they charge the same price. It is perfectly legal because they have not fixed the price. That is why the guy down the street sells gas for less and maybe for that reason he makes more money.

Next time a colleague asks you how much you charge for a day of conference, per translated word, or I ask you your hourly rate for a deposition, engage in the conversation, there is nothing wrong. You will learn from this experience and so will your colleagues.  We need to know the law to obey it and to exercise our rights.  My question to all of you is: Even if you know that discussing fees is not illegal, Do you feel comfortable doing it?  If you do not, I am curious to read your reasons for not talking price with other colleagues.

When law enforcement agencies do everything they can to avoid hiring a real interpreter.

Dear Colleagues,

The other day one of my colleagues asked my opinion about the quality of the Spanish a police officer was using during a recorded interview.  This colleague had been retained by the defense to analyze and transcribe the video of a police interview by a police woman in a very small town in the Midwest. As I sat there and listened to the nonsensical utterances that were emanating from this officer’s mouth, I went down memory lane and lived through them all again. I will never forget the police department that used a monolingual (in English) Hispanic woman as an interpreter for all of their investigations because “she grew up 20 miles from the Texas-Mexico border…(and that)…was enough to assume she spoke enough Spanish to communicate with the suspects…”  and how could I forget the police station that hired as interpreters all those who had failed the court interpreter certification test because “…they were cheaper and knew about the same…”  Never mind the disastrous results like the time when a little girl who had been the alleged victim of sexual abuse was considered to be a liar because the police interpreter did not know how to say “Christmas tree” in Spanish.  And the time when the “interpreter” referred to the pedestrian charges as the “pedophile charges”.  And yes! There was the man who interpreted the polygraph tests into Spanish and explained how to wear the wires by lifting, holding, bending, and stretching the suspects.  Hulk Hogan would have been proud of his technique.

During all my years as an interpreter, and specifically through my work as a court interpreter, I have learned that the common denominator among most police forces in the country seems to be their desire to save money on interpretation.  Apparently the fact that the investigation is jeopardized by using the services of unqualified or under-qualified linguists is not a concern.  Even in those towns where cases are systematically dismissed by the prosecution, or dismissed by the judges, because of violations to the rights of the defendant, or where indictments are based on faulty testimony, all due to a lack of communication between the English speaking authority and the non-English speaker defendant, victim, or witness,  because of poor interpretation, chiefs of police,  budget analysts, and city administrators are choosing the cheaper service provider over the sound and accurate legal investigation.

We all know that a dollar saved on a bad interpreter will translate on thousands of dollars spent on a new trial, an appeal process, or a brand new investigation.  Every time I have a chance, I talk to law enforcement administrators and try to explain how a real interpreter costs more, but at the same time she saves you money.  A $100.00 per hour interpreter will do her job correctly in two hours, while a mediocre $40.00 per hour individual will take longer, as he struggles to understand the language, comprehend the process, and communicate the concepts to both, police officer and non-English speaker.  After 8 long hours with a bad “interpreter”, the investigation moved very little, the legal process was violated several times, the cheap interpreter cost $320.00, and he has to come back the next day to finish the interview.  There were no savings.

So, as I sat there watching this video, looking at my colleague working so hard, writing down the mistakes of the interpreter doing the interview, making footnotes of her omissions, charting the additions she volunteered into the interview, and listening to my interpreter friend telling me how this police woman, part-time “interpreter” had already caused the dismissal of many cases because of her lack of skill and knowledge, I came to a strange realization:  The good interpreters are losing these police assignments to the bad ones, but because of this policy by the police departments, these good interpreters are now working as expert witnesses and linguistic advisors to the parties.  Therefore, at the end, the good interpreter wins because it is more lucrative to be the expert witness or advisor. But wait; what about the defendant, the victim, and society at large?  They may all get their justice in the long run after a lengthy legal process of appeals and re-tried cases, but in the meantime the victim will not feel safe, the innocent defendant will sit in a cell, and society will pay a hefty legal bill. All because the police department wants to save by hiring the bad interpreter.  I would like to read your comments and experiences about this topic.