Publishing Contracts

The natural consequence of this perception of the translator is reflected in the contract that the translator is made to sign by the publisher. Most of the contracts do not see the translation as an original work and require the translator to obtain permission from the authorities for translation rights. Venuti says that British and American publishing firms demand the copyright for the translation. The terms of the contract are also legally ‘safe’ for the publisher. Most American publishing houses term a translation as “work made for hire”, where “the employer or person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author … and unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all the rights comprised in the copyright” (10). So the translator has to hand over the finished ‘product’ to the publisher, and she has no claim over it after that.

This also affects the matter of payment. In most cases, translators are paid per thousand words, or per printed page (which is usually 500 – 600 words in case of a normal sized book). After this flat one-time payment, the translator does not get anything even if the book does very well in the market and goes for repeated editions. The author, on the other hand, gets a royalty for each edition. There are other possibilities for a published book, like the license to a paperback publisher or agreement with a film production company. The translator is a non-player in all these cases. Most of these conditions are replicated in the Indian translation scenario also, although Indian publishing houses bring out more titles in translation.