[cc-community] rethink attribution

Peter Brink peter.brink at brinkdata.se
Thu May 1 16:09:33 EDT 2008


Jamison Young skrev:
> When a film uses content licensed with CC, is it fair that  
> attribution happen when the film has finished? how can the artist be  
> considered to be attributed if the art is not placed with the  
> attribution?

To someone who lives in a jurisdiction in which attribution is mandatory 
by law, this discussion seems a bit odd. The Swedish copyright act art. 
3 states: "When a work is reproduced, or when it is made available to 
the public, the name of the author shall be stated to the extent and in 
the manner required by proper usage." Proper usage varies with the 
medium and the context. At a funeral it's not proper to attribute the 
author of the text to the hymns sung at all but if the texts of those 
hymns were quoted on a web page, attribution in full is required (i.e. 
you need to state the name of the author, the name of the work, year of 
publication and the name of the publisher - if applicable).

The key word is thus "proper usage". In jurisdictions where moral rights 
exists (which should be all jurisdictions according to the Berne 
Convention) this issue has been settled long ago in case law. Following 
the standards for "proper usage" should IMO be quite sufficient when 
dealing with attribution in the context of a CC license.

/Peter Brink


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