New Scam Targeting Authors

There is a new scam going the rounds, tempting authors into giving away the rights to their books for free – and it is entirely legal.
 
This affects EU copyright law, but globally the laws are very similar so you may want to keep reading and then check the law where you live. Particularly the law as it applies in the country where the scammer lives, not where you live, because that is where you will have to pursue your claim for copyright infringement.
 
The scam relates to the copyright laws for the translations of books.
 
It was meant to protect translators and give them some ownership of what they had worked hard to produce. But with recent advances in AI the law has not been able to keep up and this has opened up a loophole for scammers to wriggle through.
 
I want to reassure you that not all translators are scammers. The vast majority are honest people and will deal with you honestly. But, as usual, a small minority give the rest a bad name.
 
So, how does this scam work?

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You get an email or a DM asking if a “student” can translate your book as part of their university work. Or it may be that someone is offering to do a translation of your book for free for you for “practice”.
 
Being a kind person, you agree that the student can do the translation.
 
However, it is the translator who owns the copyright of the translation, not the author and this is the loophole that the scammers exploit.*
 
They can upload the translated version of the book onto Amazon and sell it legally and there is nothing the author can do about it, because the author gave permission for the person to translate their book – and the scammer will have the email or DM to prove it.

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It may not even be a decent translation, but the book’s buyer won’t find that out until they have bought the book and it is you, the author, whose reputation will be damaged by the poor translation as it is your name on the cover.
 
The reason that the translator holds the copyright for the translation is because of the work they have put into it. Of course, with AI available these days the “work” may be minimal, but copyright law has yet to catch up with this innovation.
 
This would also apply if you hire a translator to translate your book into another language for you, unless you have a contract prohibiting them from publishing the translated version.
 
But the scam doesn’t end there.
 
Because the translator holds the copyright for their translation, they can sell the rights to further translations to third parties. So, you have said OK to your book being translated into French, for example, but the translator can then sell the rights to their French translation to be translated into Italian, Spanish, Russian or any other language they can find a buyer for.
 
Or they can use AI to produce those translations for them.
 
And you won’t receive a penny.

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As the author you can protect your interests by refusing permission for a translation unless there is a contract in place to protect your rights as the originator.

This could be an upfront payment to you for the translation rights or it could be a royalty share deal.
 
But don’t just say “Yes” without that agreement in place. Don’t even suggest that you will consider them doing the translation. Say only that you are willing to negotiate a contract.
 
So, beware. If someone approaches you and offers to translate your book into another language, especially if they are offering to do it for free, because they may not be acting in your interests but in their own.

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If you are willing to consider allowing someone to translate your book, we recommend that you take this approach:
 
1. Ask them if they are willing to enter into a contract with you in order to protect your interests. The likelihood is that if they are scammers you will hear no more from them.
 
2. Agree terms for the transfer of the rights to translate the book.*. This may be a one off up-front payment to you for the rights, or it may be a royalty share agreement for publication of the translated work. It could be a mixture of both with an upfront payment being traded off for lower royalties.
 
3. Agree which languages they will hold the translation rights for. Usually this will just be one language, but it could be more than one, which makes the rights more valuable as it increases the potential sales volume.
 
4. Once your book has been translated into one language, the translator will have the right to sell the rights for translation into a third language, so your contract must prohibit that.
 
5. Agree who will do the publishing of the translated work, you or the translator. If it is the translator, agree the monitoring arrangements for sales on which the royalties will be calculated. This can take the form of KDP sales reports.
 
6. Agree who will do the marketing and how the marketing costs will be deducted from royalties in order to maintain an equitable balance between author and translator.
 
7. Find a solicitor/lawyer who will draft the contract on the terms you have agreed. It will cost you money, but it could earn you more in the long term.
 
This may appear complicated but remember that your book is your property, and no one will protect your rights to your book except you. The law is on your side, but in this case it is also on the side of the translator.
 
* There is one exception. In Germany, national laws state that the originator of the work holds the sole copyright, and that copyright cannot be transferred.. So, any scammer is unlikely to be offering to translate your work into German. But get a contract anyway, just to be safe.
 
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