David Davis wrote:
Greetings from Northern Kentucky.

I am looking for someone who can translate my model release into Italian.

Anyone out there that can help?

David Davis
859-384-3352

David you may not do too well with a straight literal, or exact, translation. Even if you were to come to the UK, an English speaking country more or less, you would have to tune it to British law, custom and practice in England and Wales; and just a bit further north in Scotland to Scottish law, custom and practice [they are not the same as English law in some respects - in particular concerning contracts - nor is Northern Ireland also, and, again that's still within and part of Britain.]

Now... when you start talking about non-English speaking countries it gets a bit more complicated. In France there are particular privacy issues; in Germany other issues; and only God knows what the differences in Italian, Spanish or Greek law, custom and practice would require to be in a release or excluded from a release - either way or both ways that could make it void and unenforceable.

One of the most enlightening meetings I EVER sat in on was a bunch of German speaking Swiss doing business in Spain, with Spanish language contracts translated from the original German, and with British citizens as clients whose English version was translated from the intermediate Spanish version. The Brits LOST a friggen bundle of £££ and it all hinged on the translation of a few words in their contract that could simply NOT be translated literally across the three languages with a uniform meaning. The meaning of the words and phrases changed between the original German translated into Spanish and the Spanish translated into English. The meaning would also have changed again, it transpired, had the contracts been translated from German directly into English. That was one hell of a mess - but in the end, as the transactions were taking place in Spain, it was the Spanish courts that would have sorted it and so the Spanish version - however it was arrived it - took precedence.

You need to be very careful doing what you are wanting to do. If something involving money, or legal rights such as copyright and use rights, is at issue you would be better served by a commercial international business translation service that could at least give you some assurance that, once translated, it was both a legal and an enforceable release.

Studio36

TXPhotog wrote:
I don't disagree with your statement above, but it may miss the point.

1.  If the issue is simply one of a photographer in Kentucky who wants a release in Italian so an Italian-speaking person can understand it, then it simply needs to be translated (to the degree possible).  It is intended to protect him from legal issues in Kentucky, not Italy.

Having dealt with this issue before... even there for use at home but with a non-English speaker signing off on it, I would be extremely careful. The release needs to be written, in that case, in accord with US law, custom and practice, to be sure, but also the translation has to have the same precise meaning as the English version... and it is that that often proves problematic.

TXPhotog wrote:
2.  If the issue is one of a photographer going to Italy (concerned about being sued in Italian courts), then the release needs to be rewritten to accord with the demands of Italian law (if, in fact, they are different in this regard - I have no idea).  But that is true regardless of what language the document is written in.

Yup! One of my mates doing some work in Russia encountered a Russian law that prohibits outright the use of contracts / releases written in any other language. The PRIMARY language of  the documentation has to be Russian and then that is translated into English so the model can sign a second English language version - not the other way around. Interesting.

I can tell you that there ARE some pecularities in both the copyright law and use issues, as well as personal data [privacy] issues, in most EC countries that are different from what you would expect in the US... and some of which needs to be built into both a contract and a release.

The example of that meeting in Spain was only to show how it could go badly wrong if not done properly... or even go wrong if there was an effort to do it properly but it passes through so many incompatable steps that it still comes out wrong.

I am based in England but even going 75 miles north and crossing into Scotland I have to use a slightly different form of release. Though copyright law there is exacltly the same as England the requirements of contract law is not.

Studio36

studio36uk wrote:
The release needs to be written, in that case, in accord with US law, custom and practice, to be sure, but also the translation has to have the same precise meaning as the English version...

No, it doesn't.

We might first point out that the whole purpose of a translation is to render the meaning of a document in one language into the same meaning in another language.  While it is rarely true that a perfect rendering can be done (subtleties of language don't make "equivalent" words mean exactly the same in all cases), your statement would seem to indicate either (a) the near-impossibility of achieving an acceptable translation, and therefore the near-impossibility of working with a non-English speaker because of that fact, or (b) that if the meaning between the two documents is not precisely the same, they are not legally enforceable.

I disagree.  The worst case would be where the Italian and English meanings differed (as interpreted under the laws of Kentucky).  In that event, since the photographer prepared the documents, the meaning most favorable to the model would be used to determine the meaning of the agreement.  "Most favorable to the model" does not mean "unusable by the photographer" - it just means "different", perhaps in ways that have no important significance.  If a release can be translated into Italian so that it conveys the permissions required by Kentucky law adequate for the use intended, it is fine, even though the English version may differ slightly.

TXPhotog wrote:
...subtleties of language don't make "equivalent" words mean exactly the same in all cases...

...your statement would seem to indicate either (a) the near-impossibility of achieving an acceptable translation, and therefore the near-impossibility of working with a non-English speaker because of that fact, or (b) that if the meaning between the two documents is not precisely the same, they are not legally enforceable.

The problems I have seen that have caused problems is in translations that render such as [En] "can" and "may" to another language without a relatively precise equivalent where the rendering then reads, in that other language, closer to something like "will" or "must"

The error is often very subtle.

I am not saying that the contract or release would necessarily be unenforceable just that it can sometimes present a surprise and often at the most inopportune time. Indeed someone is likely to, and going to be able to, enforce THEIR version against the other party and their version.

If it were REALLY that easy I would have sent the OP around to Bablefish. One look at mistranslations like this should be a warning to anyone...   LOL









and as for legal documents and contracts?


From a membership contract for an manga cafe in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, which also offered internet access. To enter the cafe you had to become a member and fill out a form and sign this agreement.

ROTFLMAO Believe me it doesn't get easier because it happens to be Italian we are discussing... or any other European language. Here are some EU samples just for the hell of it with a couple of Italian ones highlighted:

To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order. (Inside an elevator in Yugoslavia)

Please leave your values at the front desk. (At a Paris hotel)

Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension. (At an Austrian ski lodge)

Our wines leave you nothing to hope for. (On the menu of a Swiss restaurant)

Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion. (On the menu of a Polish hotel's restaurant)

Fur coats made for the ladies from their own skin. (In the window of a Swedish furrier)

Specialist in women and other diseases. (On the door of an Italian doctor's office)

English well talking. Here speeching American. (Signs at two Majorcan shops)

Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up. (In a Paris hotel elevator)

Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. daily. (In an Athens hotel)

The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. (In a Yugoslavian hotel)

It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose. (At a German campground)

Ladies, please leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time. (Outside a Rome laundry)

Take one of our horse-drawn city tours. We guarantee no miscarriages. (Czech tourist agency brochure)

Special Today -- NO ICE CREAM. (At a Swiss mountain inn)

We take your bags and send them in all directions. (Slogan of a Dutch airline)

Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar. (Inside a Swedish lounge)

Studio36

TXPhotog wrote:
Those are funny

Those kinds of errors in translation are exactly the problem under discussion.

Studio36