Lucky Green wrote:
Peter wrote:
(Hmm, I wonder if it can be argued that making stuff intended for public distribution inaccessible violates the creator's moral rights? I know that doesn't apply in the US, but in other countries it might work. Moral rights can't be assigned, so no publisher can take that away from you.
Peter has an interesting point, since in addition to common law applies to a trend in copyright that is prevalent in Europe (and presumably some other countries), but rather alien to the US, taking that trend further.
[...snip...]
Bills are pending or have already passed, that make it illegal for a buyer of a work of art to simply dispose of the work, or use it as kindling in his fireplace, once he no longer desires to own it. No, you can't just burn that painting you bought from some street corner painter five years ago. Though you are permitted to give the painting back to the artist. Without compensation, of course.
[...snip...] True, but it is an old process. In French law there has been a concept of "moral rights" in a work for a very long time. These are inalienable, you can't sell them. The two most important are (IIR the jargon correctly) "integrity" and "paternity". The right of integrity means that if someone buys the copyright to a work, then alters the work in a way that could affect the reputation of the originator, they can be sued. So, for example, if a painter paints a picture, sells it to a publisher, then the publisher prints a defaced version as a book cover, the painter can perhaps sue the publisher. The right of paternity is the right to be known as the originator. It was imported into English law in, IIRC, 1989, but has to be asserted - which is why nearly all books published in Britain these days have a note asserting the rights of the author to be known as the author. These rights did not exist in the USA (& still don't, quite), but the US didn't really have copyright law in the European sense until the 1980s anyway - what they /called/ copyright was something you had to apply for and register - very different from our English tradition which is based on an idea of the natural property rights of an artist or author in their own work, and so has never had to be registered or applied for, any more than you have to get government permission to own the clothes you stand up in. The moral rights limit the freedom of action of publishers to the benefit of artists and authors, not, as far as I know the ultimate purchasers, but then IANAL and IA-certainly-NA-French-L. Some people who know a lot more about it than I do have said that English law traditionally treated copyright as a matter of property, French as a matter of personality, and the US as a sort of government licenced monopoly or patent. But they are all much closer to each other these days, with international copyright law being a compromise between the old systems. Ken Brown