Creative Commons Canada

["Ian" <ian.kerr AT utoronto.ca>]

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. 

Potential change to the draft CCC licence:  Structural Modification of the Moral Rights Section.

 

The moral rights section, 4(f), could be raised to the level of other rights (e.g. 2. Fair Dealing Rights).  Below is the recommended revision.

 

Moral Rights.  Nothing in this licence is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any of the moral rights of the original author. 

a. If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable authorship credit appears and in a manner at least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit. If applicable, You must respect the Original Author’s wish to remain anonymous.

b. Except as otherwise agreed by the Original Author, if You produce, reproduce, distribute,

perform, publish, translate, convert, adopt or communicate to the public a Work or any

Derivative Works or Collective Works in any material form whatever, You must not do

anything that would infringe the Moral Rights of the Original Author, including but not limited to:

i. You must not falsely attribute the Work to someone other than the Original Author.

ii. You must not do anything that results in a material distortion, or mutilation of the Work that is prejudicial to the Original Author’s honour or reputation

iii. You must not associate the Work with a product, service, cause or institution that is prejudicial to the Original Author’s honour or reputation.

 

The Rationale:

There is a fundamental problem in closely mirroring the American CC license, when American copyright does not allow for moral rights and the reference to attribution (4d) in the American license is really a condition of the license rather than an assertion of rights (moral) that would exist apart from any license.   Thus I would suggest creating a new section outside of the 's4. Restrictions' and on par with:

1. s2 Fair Dealing Rights

2. s3 Licence Grant.

 

My modification creates a more accurate hierarchy of rights:

1.  Moral rights are raised to the level of other copyrights

2.  Both integrity and attribution are brought under the rubric of moral rights

 

 

Ian M