Cc-europe mailing list

[Florian Philapitsch <florian.philapitsch AT wu-wien.ac.at>]

Dear all,

same goes for Austria (and Germany) and almost certainly for every 
European country.
The reason for this is the difference between the European and the 
US-American copyright model.
As you all know, in European Law, copyright can be divided in 
exploitation rights and moral rights. The exploitation rights which are 
originally exclusive to the author include among others the right of 
reproduction, communication to the public, distribution, adaptation, 
fixation, rental and broadcasting. The moral rights (droit morale) stem 
from French copyright and have been introduced in international 
copyright law. They include the right to claim authorship of a work and 
the right to object to any distortion or other derogatory action in 
relation to the work which would be prejudical to the author’s honour or 
reputation. Moral rights are independent from the economic rights of an 
author and can neither be transferred nor waived.
The globL concept of copyright is based on two different approaches: the 
(continental) European concept stems from naturalistic ideals: a work 
belongs to it’s creator, the author, he is granted utmost control over 
his creation. The utilitarian concept of copyright is the core-idea 
behind Anglo-American copyright law:

As you see, European copyright is also (!) about the "sacred bond" 
between a creator and his/her works. This bond can not be broken by 
waiving. This means, CC0 will not work in Europe in any way. IMO this is 
no bad thing at all, but this is a legal/political discussion of great 
depth and length :)

Sure, law can evolve, but I highly doubt if the European copyright 
should evolve in the direction of the merely economically motivated 
US-model.

kind regards from Vienna,
Florian

Francois Dechelle schrieb:
> Dear all,
>
> I think it is impossible as well in France. The idea of a "voluntary
> public domain" has been addressed but has raised a clear opposition, for
> instance from collecting societies.
>
> I have no idea of other possible solutions. My impression is that, given
> the current state of the law, it is not possible, but after all, the law
> can evolve?
>  
> Best,
> François
>
> Le jeudi 17 avril 2008 à 16:43 +0200, Alek Tarkowski a écrit :
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I am writing in regard to Mike's announcement of the discussion around 
> > CC0 waiver. In Poland such a waiver (that is, a public domain 
> > dedication) is not possible by law, I imagine the situation might be 
> > similar in other European countries as well.
> >
> > Somehow this has not been addressed on our list - and I feel uncertain 
> > doing it myself, as I am not a lawyer! But personally I would like to 
> > know what can be done - is this a good opportunity for us to look for 
> > other solutions that would allow such waiving? or to clarify the fact 
> > that this is indeed impossible in some jurisdictions?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Alek
>
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