Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-licenses - Re: CC licenses and "moral rights"

cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: CC licenses and "moral rights"
  • Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 21:50:30 -0500

On Monday 28 March 2005 07:42 pm, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> Alex Schroeder wrote:
> > You treat moral rights like a big unknown that can be used to silence
> > you at any time. This is not true, however. In Switzerland, moral
> > rights include the "right to be named the author of a work" and the
> > "right to prevent derivatives that damage your reputation". Those terms
> > are not some vague hammer to silence the obnoxious. They are very
> > concrete terms. If I write a song for you, you may not claim to have
> > written it yourself. If I write a song for you, you may not change the
> > words such that it glorifies Hitler (and thus damages my reputation).
>
> I've heard this exact argument (invoking Hitler or Nazi propaganda as
> the defining case of reputational damage) several times. It doesn't
> strike me as particularly useful. It is hardly an edge case. And you
> know the cliche, "easy cases make bad law."
>
> How is it actually decided what constitutes damage to reputation and was
> does not (e.g., in Switzerland)? Anything the author decides they don't
> like? A legislated standard with a list of reputation-damaging
> associations, presumably including nazism? Up to a judge's discretion
> based on their intepretation of current social norms?
>
> According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights "Article 6bis of
> the Berne Convention protects attribution and integrity, stating:
>
> Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after
> the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to
> claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation
> or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the
> said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation."
>
> Which still leaves me completely in the dark as to what standards are used.

These are some of the answers I am looking for as well. Another issue is how
people of different religious beliefs (or non-religious beliefs) can use this
to object to the use of their work by people of other beliefs. Have these
sorts of cases come up?

all the best,

drew




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page