IAF member, European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations (CEATL), has published a set of guidelines for fair translation contracts which have been prepared by their Authors’ Rights Working Group.
In an interview with Danish magazine Babelfisken, Dutch translator Gertrud Maes of the CEATL Working Group elaborated on the mission of these guidelines:
“We wish to offer a tool that stimulates translators to challenge the current practice of contract negotiation, not only for the member organizations, but for everyone involved in the field of translation. This is also why the guidelines are published on the CEATL public website and why we wish to spread the news about them as widely as possible.
The usefulness of these guidelines differs, of course, from country to country and from situation to situation. But to give an example: In some countries, translators have the feeling of being unfairly treated, but they are not able to put their finger on the sore spot. In this situation, the guidelines may help single out those feelings in a concrete and usable way.
Secondly, the guidelines may be extremely useful in an early state of negotiations with e.g. a publisher or a publisher organisation on a (new) model contract – as a checklist for remembering the important points that ought to be an essential part of the negotiations. And thirdly, member associations can use the guidelines to check up on the situation in their own country: Are the model contracts as fair as they think, are their terms and conditions as good as they think, and so on.”
IAF supports these important efforts to ensure that authors and all stakeholders involved in their works better understand fair contract terms for authors. IAF has previously worked with its members to establish ten principles of fair contracts for all authors and has recently launched ten principles of fair contracts for visual artists.
You can find the full interview with Gertrud Maes in Babelfisken here.