CC licenses and "moral rights"

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Fri Mar 25 08:58:14 EST 2005


On Friday 25 March 2005 06:04 am, Peter Brink wrote:
> drew Roberts skrev:
> > And moral rights will have a chilling effect on me and people who think
> > like me. It is too risky to build on someone else's work and have the
> > chance of them taking me to court. What is to prevent them from objecting
> > to my derivative becasue they fear it is way better than their original
> > and they don't want the competition? Or they don't like my opinion as to
> > the true terminal velocity of the African Barn Swallow?
> >
> > If they have these concerns and CC chills them they can always release
> > "all rights reserved" - what benefits would CC bring to these people? One
> > of the beauties I see in the GPL is that it allows even people who hate
> > each other to work together to their mutual benefit. I am a bit of an
> > optomist and think that these sorts of working together can perhaps lead
> > ot bigger things in some situations.
>
> Moral rights does not grant an creator some kind of unlimited power. He
> must prove that his artistic integrity has been somehow violated, your
> examples do not violate anyones artistic integrity.

I don't doubt you are right, but I think you miss my point and so I think I am 
also right. "He must prove that his artistic integrity..." and where would he 
prove it if not in court? And since I do not want to run a real risk of 
winding up in court, I will not knowingly be building on his work.
>
> I think you're over-reacting. Moral rights is a matter of respect,
> respect for another persons creation. In the same way as one should
> treat ones neighbors with respect one should treat other peoples
> creations with respect.

Again I don't disagree, but I will point out that society generally holds that 
some people do not deserve respect and that some works do not deserve 
respect.

To my mind, copyright is a minefield as it stands now and I think one thing we 
should be trying to do with our licenses is to clear some of the mines, as 
many as possible in fact, and certainly not be adding to their number.

Let's say two people are debating. With all respect, one shows the other to be 
way off and he ends up looking like a fool in the eyes of the audience. Is 
there something objectionable in this?

Now consider the winner of the debate places the transcript of his words 
alongside the transcript of the other's words. Now the second person can 
object on moral grounds?

If I am over-reacting and over-reaching again, it is out of ignorance. Can you 
or someone else help enlighten us as to how these things actually work?

all the best,

drew



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