The European Commission has recently published a report on Translation and intellectual property rights.
The law firm Bird & Bird LLP was commissioned for the study, which aims to provide an overview of some of the main intellectual property right issues relevant to the domain of translation, including in the field of machine-aided translations.
The focus is on aspects related to copyright and database rights. Issues such as neighbouring rights, software protection, cloud computing, big data, or conflicts of laws were excluded from the scope of the study.
Three main questions are foregrounded:
“Are source documents protected by copyright and how does that affect the right to translate them?”
“Are translations protected by copyright and how?”
“Are databases which contain source documents and translations protected and how?”
The report includes chapters covering the following main areas:
- The development of machine-aided translations
- General legal framework for copyright and database rights
- Copyright protection of source documents
- The right to translation
- Copyright protection of translations per se
- The protection of translation tools by database rights
- Translation contracts.
You can download the report in PDF format here.
Credit: Warm thanks to John Evans for bringing the report to my attention.
.
You might also be interested in this post which contains links to a number of European Commission studies in the field of translation.
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
IT is about time! Good initiative.
Pingback: Report – Translation & IP rights | ATIF News - A voice for Florida T&I professionals
Pingback: (TOOL) (PDF) – Report – Translation & IP rights | wordstodeeds.com | Glossarissimo!
Thanks a lot for pointing to this crucial document. I just had time to have a look at the table of contents and it looks really interesting – need to find time to read it at some point!
🙂
Pingback: Name The Translator | From Words to Deeds: translation & the law