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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-community] Re: CC licenses and "moral rights"

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-community] Re: CC licenses and "moral rights"
  • Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 09:05:59 -0500

On Monday 28 March 2005 05:47 am, Peter Brink wrote:
> drew Roberts skrev:
> > I don't know if I share your confidence that moral rights and CC licenses
> > and US law don't mix though. We are interested in international, cross
> > border collaberation in the commons are we not?
>
> The problem is that European laws will prevent you from constructing an
> enforceable license. The laws are designed to prevent an originator from
> being able to transfer or waive his moral rights. A license which
> contain language that for example forces a downstream user to waive his
> moral rights would not be able to stand in court. It would either be
> declared void in full, or the specific clauses containing the waiver
> would be declared void, in any case you would have an inherently faulty
> license. I don't see any point in CC being associated with licenses that
> don't work.

So you think if I crafted a license where the original author granted a
BY-SA
type license to make derivatives so long as the maker of derivatives did not
invoke their moral rights, but that if they should invoke their moral rights
anywhere, they would lose the rights the original author granted under the
license, that such a license would be held invalid in Europe?

They would forcethe original author to give rights to their work under
conditions which they did not agree with?
>
> Licenses that are designed to circumvent moral rights are also not IMHO
> going to "sell" very well. Moral rights are an important matter in
> Europe, you will probably scare off many prospective users by
> introducing such licenses. To my mind it's just a plain bad idea.

Indeed, I think this may be a much tougher nut to crack. Can we find a middle
ground where both (all?) copyrights traditions can come to be comfortable and
work together productively? Or are we doomed to the majority of the members
of each tradition only being comfortable with others of the same tradition?

all the best,

drew




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