It's usually the moral rights (separate but related to the economic part of copyright) that can't be waived: > In most of Europe, it is not possible for author

It's usually the moral rights (separate but related to the economic part of copyright) that can't be waived: > In most of Europe, it is not possible for authors to assign or even waive their moral rights. This is following a tradition in European copyright itself, which is regarded as an item of property which cannot be sold, but only licensed. The author can agree to waive them to a limited extent (and such terms are very common in contracts in Europe). (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights#In_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights#In_Europe) IIRC, moral rights are also always tied to the individual and not to the employer or organization. In NL, these moral rights include the following properties: > even after transferring their copyright, the original creator retains the rights to: > 1a. oppose publication of the work without attribution > 1b. oppose publication of the work under a different name than their own (applies to both the name of the work and the name of the creator) > 1c. oppose modifications of the work > 1d. oppose any kind of mutilation of disfiguration of the work, or modifications that would negatively affect the perception of the work or its creator > Of these rights, 1a can be waived entirely; 1b and 1c can be waived only with regards to the name of the work, not its creator; right 1d remains the privilege of the creator (or any designated heir) for the entire duration of the copyright itself. (from https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001886/2015-07-01/#HoofdstukI_Paragraaf6_Artikel25 https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001886/2015-07-01/#Hoofdstuk...) edit: note that (1c) talks about modifications of the original (physical) work; it doesn't necessarily apply in the same sense as the GPL, where all extensions/updates to the original codebase are also considered modifications of the same work.