{"id":175,"date":"2024-04-30T20:59:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T20:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.filmuebersetzen.de\/?p=175"},"modified":"2024-05-01T08:05:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T08:05:24","slug":"ai-and-copyright-in-video-game-translation-pouring-fuel-on-a-healthy-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.avue-ev.de\/?p=175","title":{"rendered":"AI and Copyright in Video Game Translation – Pouring Fuel on a Healthy Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

von Philipp Techen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Everyone is talking about it: Artificial intelligence \u2013 creator of a new paradigm or harbinger of doom. This text will assume you have heard a little about it already, specifically about the uproar regarding potential damage done to artists due to copyright infringement, or more simply put, the copying of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this relevant for translation? Do translators even have copyrights? Yes, they do. While the industry at large would rather sweep this knowledge under the rug, translators are creators of a unique product, often creative, and as such they do retain the copyright to their creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

von Philipp Techen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Everyone is talking about it: Artificial intelligence \u2013 creator of a new paradigm or harbinger of doom. This text will assume you have heard a little about it already, specifically about the uproar regarding potential damage done to artists due to copyright infringement, or more simply put, the copying of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this relevant for translation? Do translators even have copyrights? Yes, they do. While the industry at large would rather sweep this knowledge under the rug, translators are creators of a unique product, often creative, and as such they do retain the copyright to their creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A great example for this is books in the public domain. As you might know, if no one extends a copyright on a very old piece of writing, or after a certain number of decades (varying in different countries), it becomes part of the public domain and may be freely used. An example would be classics such as Jane Austen\u2019s books and even some newer ones like The Great Gatsby<\/em>. But even if a book\u2019s original version enters the public domain, translations of it were often done much later and will likely still be copyrighted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things get even more interesting when we look at our main topic: copyright in video game translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In theory, the translator of a video game translates an often unique and creative version and legally holds the copyright to their translation. In practice, this is almost never taken into account. The legal situation is obscured by companies and their elaborate contracts, often stipulating that translators waive all rights to their creations. According to German law, it is not even legally possible to pass on a copyright but only to grant usage rights, which in other professional areas would usually come with a fee for the client. These mandatory NDAs can become rather fantastical, containing paragraphs about \u201cignoring existing copyright regulations\u201d and \u201cpassing all rights on in perpetuity\u201d. They know they\u2019re on legally weak ground and are trying really hard to convince us they’re not. Even though a lot of legal mumbo jumbo would likely not hold up in any court, clients keep using these scare tactics; they rely on the fact that most translators would never dare challenge them, given their weaker position as individuals versus companies with large legal budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why don’t translators just say „No, thank you?“ Where are the protest signs? Why do we let them get away with it? Why don\u2019t we ignore or sue these clients? The sad truth is, it\u2019s not that easy because the seeds of confusion were planted so long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The translation industry started to create precursors to the technology long before the current concept of large language model AI systems arose. Translation memory systems (see below) save a piece of text and its translation so they can be reused at will (1). This is great for consistency and can really make complicated texts with fairly clear repetitions easier to translate. Unfortunately, as these systems have become more and more server-based and are held by the big companies, the translations end up in the clients\u2019 hands to reuse however they want. That\u2019s right: any translator\u2019s work can and certainly will be reused by other translators or automated systems<\/strong> for updates on an existing title, but also for entirely new projects that the translator might never even work on, while in most cases translators themselves are not allowed to reuse their own work independently.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while this is an accepted practice (as translators do typically also benefit from it in the workflow), it plays right into the larger issue at hand. Filling AI systems with existing translation memories is easy, and as some big companies hold translation memories for thousands of titles, they can create a generative artificial intelligence with ease, neatly bypassing (or rather ignoring) the issue of the titles and translators\u2019 rights to existing texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, this doesn’t happen on too large a scale (yet), but rather for each project (as consistency in style within a project is always a major factor). But looking at a very large project with millions of lines of text \u2013 for example a large annually updated massive multiplayer game \u2013 you can imagine how an automated system could bypass translators and copyright for fast and cheap results. And with all of this, I\u2019m only talking about the companies\u2019 internal AI engines and not public systems such as Google Translate or DeepL, which stir up a much larger hornet\u2019s nest of copyright infringement and confidentiality. This trigger word, \u2018confidentiality\u2019, still keeps most large companies from dabbling with these tools. However, cost reduction is always alluring, and it wouldn\u2019t be the first legally ambiguous shortcut taken by players in the industry for the sake of smoothing a budget and meeting a deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where are we at? While the video game industry flourishes, translators working within it have rarely received recognition (#translatorsinthecredits) or appropriate pay for their works. With large providers buying up all the small ones, what little leverage individual translators have is increasingly diminished in the general market. I’m not saying that AI is creating a new crisis for translators, it’s merely pouring fuel on a very healthy fire that\u2019s been burning for many years. And unless everyone really wants AI to take the translation of novels, TV, and video games out of human hands (trust me: even if you can\u2019t imagine it yet, you really don’t want it), things will have to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now no one has the perfect answer, but that shouldn\u2019t stop us from reflecting and trying to shift the stubborn building blocks of a near-monopolistic localisation industry. Should we try to push for clearer laws on AI worldwide and include machine translation functionalities and translation memories to leave no wiggle room for abuse? Yes! Should we try to establish new rules and standards for the game industry (and other fields) on what constitutes the acceptable use of our copyrighted translations? Absolutely! Should we make clear that copyright is not a joke that can be disregarded at will and investigate the right steps to ensure that our hard work won\u2019t become the thing that’s used to replace us? Hell yeah! The bottom line is: We\u2019ve stayed silent long enough. And the most dangerous thing we can do right now is to remain passive and watch as technology evolves around us without sufficient input by the people deeply affected by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, this sounds ambiguous. Am I calling for you to pick up pitchforks? No. A revolution is rarely a realistic goal, and improving our peaceful cooperation with companies that dominate the market is in everyone\u2019s best interest. But if we want to put a stop to the steadily decreasing quality standards in our industry for the sake of art \u2013 for our love of language \u2013 then we must stick together and become strong enough to occasionally just say NO. If you\u2019re part of the AV\u00dc or a different association, get involved and find out how to get your voice heard. And if you\u2019re not involved yet, join us and work with us for a sustainable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not a legal professional and while this is well-researched (most relevant parts are in \u00a7\u00a7 3, 29 and 31 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) and there is supporting European law), I\u2019m sure the big companies still have some loopholes that I don\u2019t know about. The legal information refers to German law and can differ wildly throughout Europe and the world, so you may have to look into your countries\u2019 laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lektorat: \u00a0Brenda Benthien<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRANSLATION MEMORIES:<\/strong> Translation memories save texts in multiple languages. The text might be separated by sentences or paragraphs or simply the content of an Excel cell. When the software recognises a similar text, it displays the previous one and highlights the changes between the texts. For instance, if \u201cHe petted a dog\u201d will be followed by \u201cHe petted a cat\u201d, the translation memory will offer the previous translation and highlight the word \"cat\" as the change that needs to be considered.

He petted a dog \u2013 Er streichelte einen Hund. [Translator's confirmed translation]

He petted a cat \u2013 Er streichelte einen Hund. [Automatically inserted text 90% match in which the word for dog has to be replaced according to the software recommendation. Actually though, 2 words have to be changed.]

Newer software uses algorithms to cut these texts into smaller snippets and can automatically put them back together in different patterns to offer machine translation, for instance by recognising that the word \"cat\" was at the end of \u201cI once had a cat\u201d and then taking the word from this translation and adding it to \u201cHe petted a cat\u201d.

I once had a cat \u2013 Ich hatte mal eine Katze. [Translator's confirmed translation]

He petted a cat \u2013 Er streichelte einen Katze. [Badly auto combined from smaller snippets. Doesn\u2019t take into account the switch from masculine (for dog) to feminine (for cat). More advanced systems might get this right.]

He petted a cat \u2013 Er streichelte eine Katze. [Adjusted by the translator]

And all of this could similarly happen with a 500-word text that only contains minor changes (the larger the amount of text, the more changes are allowed since it\u2019s all about statistical percentages. See my article on the fuzzy grid for more on how this is abused to pay translators less.)<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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