4 ms·

While we're at it they need to remove the morality clause In addition to the right of licensors to request removal of their name from the work when used in a d

While we're at it they need to remove the morality clause In addition to the right of licensors to request removal of their name from the work when used in a derivative or collective they don't like, copyright laws in most jurisdictions around the world (with the notable exception of the US except in very limited circumstances) grant creators "moral rights" which may provide some redress if a derivative work represents a "derogatory treatment" of the licensor's work. It effectively makes CC pointless. The whole point of CC is to declare that you don't need to ask the author's permission because he's already given it to you but the moral clause means he really hasn't given you permission and can deny you permission for any reason whatsoever. That effectively makes CC no different as just plain all-rights-reserved where you need to ask.

binarycrusader 14y ago
I don't see that as a clause so much as a disclaimer. But the real trouble is that some countries don't allow an author to surrender their moral rights. I believe Germany is one of those. So whether the CC license mentions it, in some countries it still matters.
- rafitorres 14y ago
  > But the real trouble is that some countries don't allow an author to surrender their moral rights Correct. This is what happened in Puerto Rico. In preparation for the Puerto Rico version of CC, the University of Puerto Rico Cyberclinic did a comparative study of moral rights across the world: http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/international/pr/moral-rights.pdf http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/international/pr/moral-ri... which is pretty informative.
  - luriel 14y ago
    "Moral rights" in this contexts seems to be a utterly Orwellian contraption. There are few more fundamental rights than the right of free speech, and this so called "moral rights" are utterly incompatible with free speech.
    - masklinn 14y ago
      > "Moral rights" in this contexts seems to be a utterly Orwellian contraption. No more so than the right to privacy, or publicity rights in general. > There are few more fundamental rights than the right of free speech There's absolutely nothing effectively fundamental to free speech. Not even one country provides for unlimited and unrestrained free speech, yet most of them seem to work well enough. > and this so called "moral rights" are utterly incompatible with free speech. I fail to see the relation, let alone the "utter incompatibility". Not that it matters, as both are social constructs
      - davorak 14y ago
        > I fail to see the relation, let alone the "utter incompatibility". Well in the USA flag burning is considered a form of free speech. After reading parts of the linked document from Puerto Rico it seems like I would not have legally be able to burn/destroy/deconstruct art that I have bought from an artist under all circumstances with out the artists permission. From the USA legal perspective this seems to limit free speech. > Not that it matters, as both are social constructs Some constructs are more effective then others at achieve specific goals, in this sense it does matter.
        vidarh 14y ago
        Your free speech in the US does not extend to the right to burn any specific flag, but to the act of burning a flag as a political expression, so this would only restrict your speech in cases where destroying a specific, unique work is important to the speech. Maybe there are specific cases where doing so is an important message, but conversely giving you that right would give you the right to destroy the speech of others. How is giving you that right furthering free speech?
    - drostie 14y ago
      Well, the moral rights available to most authors are not generally Orwellian. One of them, for example, is a right which you cannot waive to say "I made that" and perhaps to coerce others into admitting that "she made that" (i.e. attribution). CC-BY already does this, as do most open-source licenses. Another is a right which you cannot waive to be able to later say, "stop using my work," as if, for example, some organization you detest, let's say NAMBLA, decided to play your music as inspirational anthems at their meetings. Crucially, if they are economically impacted by this (e.g. they place your music in a film and now your claim forces them to redo the soundtrack, recall all the copies which they've already made and distribute replacements, etc.) then they can usually demand that you pay for the costs involved. French law goes a little further in this vein. In French law, if you paint something racy for a private collector which could perhaps damage your reputation if it went public, you can decide that the private collector is not allowed to put your painting up for public exhibitions, and they have to respect that (at least until you die). If they are going to make a ceremony of burning or defacing your work, you're also entitled to forbid them from doing so -- though I'm not sure how this applies to derivative works, it demands "respect de l'intégrité de l'oeuvre" -- respect of the integrity of the work. Moral rights are not strictly copyrights -- they do not forbid copying. They are only incompatible with "free speech" in a subset of cases where, arguably, that speech is being used to harm the author of the work. The only peculiarity is that the author of the work is given a very wide latitude to decide what uses of their work are "harmful" to them -- but this is probably the only way to avoid massive legal complications.
  - derleth 14y ago
    PDF!
- masklinn 14y ago
  > I believe Germany is one of those. France is as well, there's no such thing as "copyright" there instead there's an "author's right", which is split in "Estate Rights" and a "Moral Right". Estate rights are about the economic exploitation of the work: its sale, its reproduction, its usage, etc... This is the most similar part to the UK's copyrights in that it's about property and it expires when the work falls into the public domain. Then there's the moral right, which is about the authorship relation: the work is found to be part of the author, and the other way around. The moral right is closely related to the right of publicity.

binarycrusader 14y ago

I don't see that as a clause so much as a disclaimer. But the real trouble is that some countries don't allow an author to surrender their moral rights. I believe Germany is one of those. So whether the CC license mentions it, in some countries it still matters.

rafitorres 14y ago
> But the real trouble is that some countries don't allow an author to surrender their moral rights Correct. This is what happened in Puerto Rico. In preparation for the Puerto Rico version of CC, the University of Puerto Rico Cyberclinic did a comparative study of moral rights across the world: http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/international/pr/moral-rights.pdf http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/international/pr/moral-ri... which is pretty informative.
- luriel 14y ago
  "Moral rights" in this contexts seems to be a utterly Orwellian contraption. There are few more fundamental rights than the right of free speech, and this so called "moral rights" are utterly incompatible with free speech.
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > "Moral rights" in this contexts seems to be a utterly Orwellian contraption. No more so than the right to privacy, or publicity rights in general. > There are few more fundamental rights than the right of free speech There's absolutely nothing effectively fundamental to free speech. Not even one country provides for unlimited and unrestrained free speech, yet most of them seem to work well enough. > and this so called "moral rights" are utterly incompatible with free speech. I fail to see the relation, let alone the "utter incompatibility". Not that it matters, as both are social constructs
    - davorak 14y ago
      > I fail to see the relation, let alone the "utter incompatibility". Well in the USA flag burning is considered a form of free speech. After reading parts of the linked document from Puerto Rico it seems like I would not have legally be able to burn/destroy/deconstruct art that I have bought from an artist under all circumstances with out the artists permission. From the USA legal perspective this seems to limit free speech. > Not that it matters, as both are social constructs Some constructs are more effective then others at achieve specific goals, in this sense it does matter.
      - vidarh 14y ago
        Your free speech in the US does not extend to the right to burn any specific flag, but to the act of burning a flag as a political expression, so this would only restrict your speech in cases where destroying a specific, unique work is important to the speech. Maybe there are specific cases where doing so is an important message, but conversely giving you that right would give you the right to destroy the speech of others. How is giving you that right furthering free speech?
  - drostie 14y ago
    Well, the moral rights available to most authors are not generally Orwellian. One of them, for example, is a right which you cannot waive to say "I made that" and perhaps to coerce others into admitting that "she made that" (i.e. attribution). CC-BY already does this, as do most open-source licenses. Another is a right which you cannot waive to be able to later say, "stop using my work," as if, for example, some organization you detest, let's say NAMBLA, decided to play your music as inspirational anthems at their meetings. Crucially, if they are economically impacted by this (e.g. they place your music in a film and now your claim forces them to redo the soundtrack, recall all the copies which they've already made and distribute replacements, etc.) then they can usually demand that you pay for the costs involved. French law goes a little further in this vein. In French law, if you paint something racy for a private collector which could perhaps damage your reputation if it went public, you can decide that the private collector is not allowed to put your painting up for public exhibitions, and they have to respect that (at least until you die). If they are going to make a ceremony of burning or defacing your work, you're also entitled to forbid them from doing so -- though I'm not sure how this applies to derivative works, it demands "respect de l'intégrité de l'oeuvre" -- respect of the integrity of the work. Moral rights are not strictly copyrights -- they do not forbid copying. They are only incompatible with "free speech" in a subset of cases where, arguably, that speech is being used to harm the author of the work. The only peculiarity is that the author of the work is given a very wide latitude to decide what uses of their work are "harmful" to them -- but this is probably the only way to avoid massive legal complications.
- derleth 14y ago
  PDF!
masklinn 14y ago
> I believe Germany is one of those. France is as well, there's no such thing as "copyright" there instead there's an "author's right", which is split in "Estate Rights" and a "Moral Right". Estate rights are about the economic exploitation of the work: its sale, its reproduction, its usage, etc... This is the most similar part to the UK's copyrights in that it's about property and it expires when the work falls into the public domain. Then there's the moral right, which is about the authorship relation: the work is found to be part of the author, and the other way around. The moral right is closely related to the right of publicity.