CC-Khamoosh journal

Khamoosh:Creative Commons Report (1)


--- Part 1: Translations Process (2022 - 2024)


 This is a detailed reflection on the process of translating Creative Commons [CC] licenses and their legal codes into Farsi/Persian and Kurdish (Sorani) by the Khamoosh community. 

This is the first part of our report that reflects on the process of translating the Creative Commons licenses and their legal codes into Persian and Kurdish. Please refer to the second part for the virtual workshop.

Please feel free to share this report widely, leave us any feedback or comments here, and/or request to volunteer for peer-reviewing our translations (either in Persian or Kurdish). Your contributions to this collective effort will be appreciated and credited on the Credits webpage [update: February 2024].

You can read more about the Khamoosh mission and work here. For our current work-in-progress and outputs review here. For support and contact visit here.

It is worth noting that Persian/Farsi and Kurdish are not the only representatives of languages spoken in Iran, and we do not wish to limit the linguistic diversity in Iran, which includes around 200 languages and dialects. Also, both Persian and Kurdish are spoken in at least 10 countries except Iran. Instead, we see this effort as a starting point for other collective works in various languages in/beyond Iran.

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Backstory

In Fall 2022, we built a form for submissions and entries for Khamoosh sound library, including a section explaining the different ways of access for users, partly incorporating CC licenses for works that allow sharing. We discovered that most users, including members of Khamoosh, were not familiar with Creative Commons licenses, and that the English explanations were not sufficient.


Screenshot of the Submissions Form of Khamoosh sound library


We also found that Creative Commons had preliminary Persian/Farsi webpages, but their translations were not comprehensive. Consequently, we decided to provide solid translations for each license in Persian.

 In December 2022, Niloufar Lari, one of the members of Khamoosh who is also responsible for research and translation as part of her role in organizing resources for the Khamoosh community, started translating the “About CC Licenses” webpage, and providing a brief description of each license in Persian.


 Draft of the translation of CC ethos and licenses into Persian (Dec. 2022)


This work was initiated voluntarily with the editorial support of Khorshid Parsi and the assistance of Pantea Armanfar in facilitating community efforts. We reached out to Creative Commons to seek guidance on translating the licenses and discovered that the legal codes are the most crucial part of the translation, none of which had been previously translated into Persian. "When the legal codes are translated, users (as well as your court system and government) can rely on your translation instead of having to refer to the English version," advised Yuanxiao Xu, Counsel at Creative Commons. She also supported us throughout this project and at the time, connected us with the Copyright Platform for meeting and collaborating with like-minded legal experts in other parts of the world, and introduced us to their support for community projects.


 Yuanxiao Xu offering us support and resources


Community Fund Support from CC Copyright Platform

Later in March 2023, we applied for a community fund from the CC Copyright Platform to be able to continue this work with a budget of $2800. This grant enabled us to form a team to translate the licenses into Persian and Sorani Kurdish, as well as create engagements around these translations by designing and conducting a workshop and creating visual materials by our Graphic Designer Kimiya Moradi.

Soon after, our team was formed and we began translating the legal codes into Persian using the Creative Commons 4.0 Translation Worksheet and Legal tools translation guide, which proved to be very helpful and time-saving. However, the process was more challenging and slower than we anticipated. Many terms had no direct translation into Persian, and we realized that we needed to suggest words that aligned with the legal language to be used in the court system in Iran while still being accessible to the reader. This required the expertise of various consultants to offer us guidance and feedback. At this stage, M.Ali Aghabozorgi Naeimi, Attorney at Law and Legal Consultant who offered us initial consultancy in the translations process became an active member of the translations group. 

During this process, we also needed to find a Kurdish translator, which proved to be difficult due to the limited platform and cultural space for supporting Kurdish literature. It took us longer than expected, but eventually Erfan Karami joined our group through an open call. He formed an editorial team along with Ariyan Qaderyan and Nyan Foad Ahmad Barzanji.

Open call for Kurdish (Sorani) Translations of Creative Commons licenses and their legal codes


Workshop Preparations


By September 2023, we had completed both translation projects and were preparing a workshop to introduce the translation process and its challenges. We also invited a collective peer-reviewing of the legal codes. 

Khorshid wrote a proposal of the translations process which translation can be read here, and also initiated a collaboration with the Iranian Editorial Society.

As part of our community communication with CC, we applied for partly-funded scholarships for "CC Certificate for Open Culture/ GLAM", and later in our workshop, with support from Khamoosh budget, we offered two fully-funded slots to the participants. 

With each team member located in different cities or villages across Iran, as well as some of us in diaspora living in different continents, communication and remote collaboration became a challenge that we had to overcome. Fatemeh Saedi and Parisa Mirsadeghi, Communication Advisor and Coordinators in Khamoosh, helped this aspect alongside Khorshid and Pantea. As of now in the time of writing this report, we have exchanged +1520 messages on Khamoosh community discord server, and +40 online meetings and collective readings of the translations.

Screenshot of Creative Commons channel on Khamoosh discord server


Conclusion and Next Steps

The workshop was held on December 8, 2023, with detailed documentation provided in part 2 of this report, which can be read, watched, and studied. 

As part of our workshop preparation, we interviewed experts who offered responses to the specific questions arised in the translations process. For the workshop, we decided to stay focused on what, how, and why of CC licenses, introduce our translations project, and invite public engagement for collective peer-reviewing of the translations.

We have also concluded that hosting further workshops or engagements, such as podcasts featuring interviews or debates, could be potentially the next steps in advancing our work so far.

At present, both groups are undergoing peer-review and editorial support from various stakeholders. The finalization is expected to take place in Winter 2024, after which the materials will be submitted to Creative Commons for a broader assessment and review before being published on their website.