Legal Code Translation Policy

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Creative Commons has established the following Official Legal Code Translation Process and Policy (“Legal Code Translation Policy”) to facilitate adoption and understanding of our licenses as tools for sharing creative works and data. This Legal Code Translation Policy was established as of 29 October 2013 and is updated and revised by Creative Commons in its discretion. Any non-trivial revisions will be logged and dated at the bottom of this page.

Watch this explanatory video:

How-to-translate-licenses.png


Overview

The legal code for the international Creative Commons licenses and for CC0 is designed for use worldwide, without any need for adaptation to local laws. For these tools to reach their fullest potential, CC encourages linguistic translations of the legal codes and deeds into as many languages as possible. This page describes the policy and process for developing official translations of Creative Commons legal code.

The process for developing new translations (each is called a “translation project”) is coordinated and overseen by CC’s legal team in collaboration with the global network team. Creative Commons reserves the exclusive right to approve and host official translations of its legal tools, as well as to modify this process and adjust translation projects at any time. Per our policy, each official translation is hosted at a specified uniform resource indicator on CC’s website. The English original and the official translations will all be treated as equivalents. Translations of CC licenses that are not made in accordance with this policy are unauthorized modifications of our licenses per the License Modification Policy.

Translation process

Step 1. Beginning new translation projects.

Anyone may initiate a translation project with CC. To express interest, please email legal [at] creativecommons [dot] org identifying the language you would like to coordinate.

Note that CC’s policy is to publish a single, official translation for any given language unless an important reason exists to allow more than one. This mirrors CC’s policy for translations of deeds. Anyone wanting to coordinate translation projects is expected to accommodate and encourage participation of individual or institutional members of the global network from those other jurisdictions. CC will help coordinate this collaboration.

Once a new translation project is begun, CC will update its public tracking chart and create and populate language-specific translation page for public tracking, which will be continually updated by CC throughout the translation process.

Step 2. Preparing the translation draft.

Please refer to the legal tools translation guide while creating your translation because it contains information about common issues that arise when translating the text of the licenses and CC0. When translating the 4.0 license suite, please begin with BY-NC-SA using the worksheet here. (Note there is also a translation worksheet for CC0.)

Once draft is complete, the translation team should send it to legal[at]creativecommons[dot]org, along with a writeup of the following:

  • Explanation of word choice for the following terms:
    • For version 4.0:
      • Adapted Material
      • Copyright and Similar Rights
      • Downstream recipients
      • Licensed Material
      • Share
      • ShareAlike
    • For CC0:
      • Copyright and Related Rights
      • Affirmer
      • Work
      • License
      • Waiver
  • Description of which concepts were challenging to translate and how decisions were made
  • Explanation of variations compared to terminology used on deed translation
  • Explanation of variations compared to terminology used in ports of same language
  • Names of translators

CC Legal will use this explanation during their Step 3 review, and will add it to language wiki page as part of public documentation of translation process.

Step 3. Review of draft.

CC Legal will conduct a review of the draft translation using the following checklist:

  1. Use Google Translate to read through from top to bottom, looking for glaring errors like commercial uses allowed in NC license, for example.
  2. Check that formatting is the same as the English - e.g., bold text.
  3. Use Google Translate to ensure no references to specific local legislation.
  4. Check that numbering and ordering of sections matches the English.
  5. Check that cross-references within text are correct.
  6. Make sure each defined term is in the same order as the English, and uses same capitalization throughout document.
  7. Go through relevant issues list, checking draft on each point using Google Translate and asking questions of team as needed: 4.0 issues list here, CC0 issues list here
  8. Check draft license translation against translations of deed to see if any notable changes in terminology. If yes, ask team for more information.

CC Legal will correspond with the translation team to clarify questions and make changes until a final draft translation is completed. Note that this step will reveal whether there are updates needed for the deed translations. The translation team is responsible for ensuring that the deed is fully translated. For help translating the deeds, see the instructions here.

Step 4. Public comment period.

The public comment period is designed to ensure the highest quality linguistic translations possible. The translation team posts the draft on the CC wiki and in appropriate channels for public comment and feedback for a reasonable period of time (typically about 30-45 days, but may be shortened or extended if circumstances warrant). We encourage teams to seek as much input as possible, including by reaching out directly to local experts where possible.

At the conclusion of the public comment period, the translation team sends CC a written summary of input received and how issues were resolved, along with revised translation and other 5 license translations.

Step 5. Follow up on public comment.

CC Legal reviews the public comment summary from the translation team and asks questions as needed.

Step 6. Readying files for staging server.

Once all open issues are resolved with CC Legal after public comment, team converts files to HTML and sends HTML files to legal [at] creativecommons [dot] org. CC puts files on staging server and sends links to translation team.

To create the HTML files, we recommend using the English legal code pages - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode et. al. - as templates for your own. You can download the HTML page for each license by going to File -> Save Page As… and then select “Webpage, HTML only”, or whatever equivalent there is for your browser. In a text editor or HTML editor, open each file you have saved. Copy and paste your appropriate license text over the previous text, being careful not to copy over the existing HTML tags, and re-check the code to ensure that there are no mistakes. Please ensure that all the XHTML files are saved using UTF-8 encoding, which generally will be the default.

Then save each file separately according to the following convention:

  • CC0:
    • zero_1.0_[language code].html

(For example, "zero_1.0_fr.html" would be the naming for the French translation.)

  • 4.0
    • by_4.0_[language code].html
    • by-sa_4.0_[language code].html
    • [...]

Step 7. Final review.

Translators and CC Legal conduct final review of all files on the staging server. Review should involve a check of both the substance and formatting of the files.

During this final review, CC Legal will use the following checklist:

  1. Use Google Translate to read through from top to bottom, looking for glaring errors like commercial uses allowed in NC license, for example.
  2. Pay special attention to the license titles - are they correct and consistent throughout each file? Compare to titles on license deeds.
  3. Check that formatting appears correct as compared to English (same number of provisions, identical section numbering)
  4. Check that language list contains all published translations, including English
  5. Check all links in the files
  6. Check that deeds are fully translated
  7. For version 4.0, cut and paste each file into a Word doc and run the following comparisons:
      • BY-NC-SA to BY; compare to this
      • BY-NC-SA to BY-SA; compare to this
      • BY-NC-SA to BY-NC; compare to this
      • BY-NC-SA to BY-ND; compare to this
      • BY-NC-SA to BY-NC-ND; compare to this

This stage continues until all identified problems are resolved.

Step 8. General Counsel sign-off.

Once translators and CC have signed off on all files, send to General Counsel for final sign-off. CC Legal will coordinate details for blog post announcement with translation team at this point.

Step 9. Pull request submitted.

Once General Counsel signs off, CC Legal submits pull request for CC tech team with details about how language should be listed in the language lists on the footer of other published translations.

Step 10. Publication.

Once pull request is merged, CC will alert translation team and publish announcement on the CC blog and social media. CC Legal will update wiki tracking sheet with publication dates. Translation team should update Transifex so that deeds link to published translation rather than English legal code.


Translations in progress (as of policy effective date)

Individual or institutional members of the global network who began preparing translations before this Policy was instituted and wish to have their translations considered official should notify CC Legal and provide the following information:

  1. Language of translation;
  2. Persons involved in the translation;
  3. Description of the translation process undertaken;
  4. Description of any public comment process and involvement (or request for involvement) of other individual or institutional members from jurisdictions with the same official or primary language.

The CC legal team will review the information and will make a determination as to appropriate next steps consistent with the processes and principles described above.

All teams beginning translations after January 2018 should follow the regular process outlined above.

Supporting documents

Changelog

  • 3 September 2019: Revised process to better reflect current practice in terms of who and how translations are initiated, and added far more detail about different steps in the process.
  • 26 May 2018: As of January 2018, the Affiliate Network transitioned to a Global Network, where everyone - individuals and institutions - are welcome. This policy reflects the new structure.
  • 14 March 2017: Moved "Creating the files" from Legal tools translation guide to this page
  • 21 November 2016: Removed the obligation to send the translation proposal using the forms
  • 4 November 2016: Added detailed new steps to the translation process
  • 17 April 2015: Clarification that unofficial translations violate License Modification Policy
  • 4 February 2015: Change in supplemental material requirements, added CC0 translation worksheet
  • 4 February 2014: Additional supplemental material requirements, new version of internal checklist posted
  • 24 January 2014: More detailed summary.
  • 29 October 2013: Policy established.
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