Re: PostGutenberg Copyrights and Wrongs for Give-Away Research

From: Alan Story <a.c.story_at_ukc.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 15:46:21 +0100

I am not sure that you really want to get into this terrain but....

" Moral rights" essentially do not exist in US copyright law ( except for
visual artists and in certain cirsumstances where they are not called moral
rights.); indeed, US law is essentially hostile to moral rights and was able
to force though a section of the TRIPS agreement exempting moral rights as a
requirement for national statutory protection. Moral rights are derived from
author's rights systems in Contintental Europe. They do exist in the UK by
statute.

" Moral rights" should NOT be conflated with intellectual property...and it
is no more of a transparent term. Indeed " moral rights" is a bad
translation of the French word " droits moraux", roughly personal rights.

Alan Story
Kent Law School
Canterbury UK

-----Original Message-----
From: September 1998 American Scientist Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]On Behalf Of Stevan
Harnad
Sent: Monday 22 July 2002 15:07
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: PostGutenberg Copyrights and Wrongs for Give-Away Research


On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Fytton Rowland wrote:

> whether I transfer the IP to someone else or not, in the case of text, I
still
> retain the moral right to be identified as its author, and for it not to
be
> changed, etc.

Yes, that's my understanding too. Perhaps "moral right" is a more
transparent term than "intellectual property."

I think we need to hear from Charles Oppenheim on this...

(Also, what becomes of the moral right if a text is put in the public
domain?)

Stevan
Received on Mon Jul 22 2002 - 15:46:21 BST