[cc-community] No Hard Copy Distribution Condition (Let's discuss)
Andrew Rens
andrewrens at gmail.com
Thu Feb 14 11:39:55 EST 2008
On 12/02/2008, Ocetalo <zelus.et.radix at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Andrew. I'm talking about things I don't really know, but I'll try:
>
> *Author's must have control over the fate of their works.
>
> >> they must? Why do you say that?
> *
> Let's say you're a jew graphic artist (sorry I find no more accurate
> example now) proud to be a jew. You license one picture under CC BY-NC. Many
> people can get it, including some neo-nazi men. They misuse it. Who cares?
> They're only individuals. Now, "Blood Dignity", a neo-nazi-oriented
> organization, gets, prints and uses your picture for the cover of a
> non-profit publication intended to support ideas which are against your
> principles and insulting to jews. What stops them from? CC BY-NC allows them
> to, without having to ask your permission. They *don't even have to notify
> * you, so they do it literally behind your back and it is OK! Some weeks
> or months later you notice it, but it's too late. Your reputation is already
> damaged. You appear linked to an organization you would never be involved
> with. And what do you think the opinion of many jews will be? I know it's a
> poor example but it gives some idea on my concerns.
### I am not sure why you think that this issue is somehow connected to
licensing. Imagine the same scenario you've described but the book is sold
by the graphic artist to a commercial publisher. As is always the case in
the industry the author will transfer the copyright to the publisher who
will then be the sole decision maker on whether a licence is granted to
Blood Dignity or not. The author has no more or less power to prevent that
in an all rights reserved model.
### The way an author could object in either scenario by means of moral
rights. But moral rights are not based on the licensing regime. The author
who licences his work under CC, has the same ability to use the moral right
to prevent that. Whether he can succeed in doing so has no relationship to
the licence used.
Of course there are many who think that moral rights are a problem, for both
all rights reserved works and Creative Commons works because they allow an
author who has given certain rights, whether to an publisher or to the
public to still prevent use of the work under the granted rights (whether CC
or assignment of copyright).
And that does seem to be a concern in Continental systems of law. However it
is only in the kind of extreme, exceptional scenario such as the one
described by you that Anglophone systems would allow an author to use the
moral right, again however that is unrelated to how the work is licensed.
* Literary works are more vulnerable to distortion than other kind of works,
> > *
>
> *
> >> Why do you claim that? *
>
> Because authors of literary works (I mean not only stories, but also
> articles, essays...) are expected to be more involved with opinions
> expressed in their writings thus more responsible for them. Written stuff is
> always supposed to reflect the author's way of thinking more accurately, so
> it's more likely to be taken seriously.
>> And yet one could also say that musical and artistic works because they
express the emotional inner essence of the creator are more vulnerable to
distortion
* and also can bring more harm in case of misuse by organizations. *
>
> *
> >> Could you give us an example *
>
> There are lots! A few here:
> http://www.caslon.com.au/mrcasesnote.htm
> http://www.rbs2.com/copyr.htm
> http://www.rbs2.com/moral.htm#anchor222222
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property00/jurisdiction/Giganteedit.html
> Something like this case is what I'm concerned about: *
> Shostakovich v. 20th Century-Fox (*lost in US) or *Soc. Le Chant de Monde
> v. **20th Century-Fox* (won in France)
### interesting examples, however many of them had to do with colourising
movies or changing musical works rather than literary works, so I don't see
a majority pointing to the vulnerability of literary works, it would make
for an interesting statistically based research question though, perhaps a
behavioural economics PhD...
### its also to note that regardless of how a work is licensed that there is
an exception which allows quotation for the purposes of criticism, thus even
if an author hides his work at the bottom of a cave in an iron safe for fear
of being "misused" if a person quotes that work and acknowledges the author
then that person is entitled to do so, regardless of the licensing of the
work, that is an exception in Berne Convention which all Berne Convention
countries must incorporate in their law
There are of course numerous examples of people trying to use copyright to
censor speech by others, however the fact that people try to use it for
censorship does not mean that the purpose of copyright is censorship. In
general in democracies the answer to bad speech is more speech, not an
attempt to silence others.
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