Creative Commons Canada

["philippa lawson" <plawson AT uottawa.ca>]

I suspect that in most cases, artistic creators will not want to waive either their moral right to integrity of the work, or their moral right to be associated with the work.  (This may be less the case with creators of technical works like software.)

 

A good example that Russell might appreciate involves Michael Moore's recent decision to let people copy his new film, F911.  He wants it to be seen, and doesn't care much about being paid.  Attribution is not an issue because everyone knows he made the film.  But, does he want his opponents to take a copy of the film and insert their own critiques/rebuttals/etc. throughout the film?  I suspect not....(but that is exactly what some people in the USA are talking about doing, and without moral rights they may be allowed to do so in the US). 

 

Moral rights are central to the Canadian copyright regime - from both the creater and user perspectives.  I don't think we should treat them as an afterthought.  I'm not as concerned as others about adding a step or two to the CC licensing process to deal with moral rights.  It's more important that we deal with the issue so that both those adopting CC licenses and those using CC-licensed products understand their rights clearly.

 

Pippa

 

**********************************************************************
Philippa Lawson
Executive Director
Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)
University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
57 Louis Pasteur
Ottawa, Canada K1N 6N5
tel: (613) 562-5800 x.2556
fax: (613) 562-5417
e-mail: plawson AT uottawa.ca
http://www.cippic.ca
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----- Original Message -----

From: Ian

To: cc-ca AT lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 5:52 PM

Subject: RE: [Cc-ca] Response to Sheila Crossey

Greetings,
  
My name is Ian M. I am a research fellow at CIPPIC and I am assisting Professor Bornfreund with the Canadian Creative Commons initiative.

Below is a response to Russell's comments on June 30^th, 2004.

Examples of Moral Rights

Individuals might not want to waive their moral right to be associated with a work for a number of reasons: 

1. they want to attract interest in their future works.
2. they want to augment their reputations. 
3. they want to receive input/feedback on their works 

 

Individuals might not want to waive their moral right to the integrity of a work and risk some kind of degradation or perversion:

1. having their works associated with some distasteful commercial product.
2. having their works used in propaganda.

The right to the Integrity of a work is important for CC licences because licensors really don’t know who is downloading their work (it might a distasteful organization).  Whereas, if creators are selling rights, they can exercise more control (i.e. not let distasteful organizations buy their work in the first place).

 

People don’t know about Moral Rights

It is a good point.  It is probably applicable to commercial copyright licences as well.  People buying copyright might well expect to be able to do anything with it.  Although, if they have money to buy copyright, they probably also have a lawyer to tell them about moral rights.  CC users won't generally have lawyers so Russell is right, many users of CC licences may have no idea about moral rights.

 

One thing that can be done is to have a section in the Human-Readable CC deed about moral rights, accompanied by a representative symbol.  We are working on this now and are open to suggestions about a symbol. 

A symbol already exists for the 'moral right to be associated with a work', BY:

We still need a symbol for the 'moral right to integrity' and possibly a symbol for 'moral rights' in general.

 

Uncertainty

Making the waiver of moral rights automatic in CC licences would increase the certainty of users. 

However, waiver of moral rights would require an active choice by creators and, at present, we don’t want to make the licence selection process any more complicated.  It is certainly an option in the future.  Naturally, it is not the intention of CC to deprive creators of any rights that they reasonably might want to keep (no matter how much certainty it would give users).

 

 

Ian M

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: cc-ca-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:cc-ca-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Russell McOrmond
Sent: June 30, 2004 5:56 PM
To: cc-ca AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Cc-ca] Response to Sheila Crossey

 

 

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, Marcus Bornfreund wrote:

 

> (Copyright Act s.14.1(2)). The creator may agree to permit certain uses

> which would otherwise constitute infringement of her moral rights while

> retaining all other moral rights.

 

  Can you give me an example of a moral right that CC'ers would not want

to waive?

 

  One of the advantages of CC and FLOSS licenses is that they create more

certainty in an otherwise litigious world.  Increased legal certainty was

in fact what drew me to Free Software over 12 years ago.

 

  If I redistribute a work or build upon it (SA, or other derivatives

allowed) I want to be certain that nobody can come to me later and claim I

am infringing their work for what may amount to me to be a highly uncertain

and subjective reason.

 

 

 

Possibly off-topic "thinking out loud"...

 

  While the focus of copyright in the past has been on the so-called

"original author" (if such a person truly exists), I believe that CC

seeks to protect follow-on creativity and distribution.  Protecting the

present and the future from the past should be part of the thinking.

 

  I think many people using Canadian CC licenses will assume that moral

rights are being waived. Many Canadians don't even know they have moral

rights, and think we have the same copyright laws as the USA.  If a court

case happens later when someone exerts their moral rights, I suspect many

Canadian CC users will question whether they are protected and whether the

CC licenses provide them any value.

 

 

  Sorry for that rambling.  I just published my own answers to the

CIPPIC.ca questions of election candidates.  Some of the thinking around

"Educational Use of Internet Materials" has seemed backwards to me thus

far, as do many conversations around copyright reform.

  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/view/428

 

--

 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>

 Petition for Users' Rights, Protect Internet creativity and innovation

      Canadian Election 2004: http://digital-copyright.ca/

 Find out where parties and candidates stand on important Tech issues!

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