Sci Journals, authors, internet

[Ken Brown]

Tom wrote:

[...]
 
> - publication
>   the creator can control if and how his work gets published. only he may
>   cite from or describe his work in public as long as neither the work
>   nor a description of it are published with his permission.
>   (e.g. even the publisher can't leak stuff without the author's consent)

This is basically copy right as already existed in England, & not one of
the moral rights. 
 
> - credit
>   the creator must be given proper credit, and he can choose if and
>   what kind of credit (e.g. if he wants to use his real name or a
>   pseudonym)

Yep, this got added to English law (but not US, I think, except for the
weird VARA Peter mentioned which only applies to unique original
objects)

> - defense against disfiguration (?)
>   creator can fight against attacks on the integrity of his work,
>   within limits.
>   this is the complicated part. as I parse it, the intention was that
>   if you, say, write a poem against communism and by some freak
>   accident the communist party adopts it as their hymn, you can stop
>   them from doing so (unless you enjoy the irony of it).

I don't know about the German laws but this is not, I think, the case in
most other countries. Just borrowing a poem &  using it somewhere else
would (at worst) count as parody, which is legally protected speech in
the US (& usually in England as well).

I think the law is more intended for the Alan Smithee situation, where a
publisher (or record company, film studio, broadcaster, whatever)  takes
a work and changes it so that the author thinks it makes them look bad,
and they don't want to be associated with it. I am no expert, but I
think up till 1989 in common law jurisdictions this would have to have
been pursued as defamation - which in the USA means the aggrieved party
has effectively no chance at all, and in England that the side with the
most expensive lawyers wins.
 
> to me, the german copyright appears to take much more consideration of
> the author, while the US copyright system is entirely economical in
> nature. 

That is my general impression.  As an example of the sort of nonsense
that some countries recognise moral rights to avoid,  while Googling
around for these things I found this heap of prdroid shit:

"... any submission of materials by you will be considered a
contribution to Boeing for further use in its sole discretion,
regardless of any proprietary claims or reservation of rights noted in
the submission. Accordingly, you agree that any materials, including but
not limited to questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, plans, notes,
drawings, original or creative materials or other information, provided
by you in the form of e-mail or submissions to Boeing, or postings on
this Site, are non-confidential (subject to Boeing's Privacy Policy) and
shall become the sole property of Boeing. Boeing shall own exclusive
rights, including all intellectual property rights, and shall be
entitled to the unrestricted use of these materials for any purpose,
commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgement or compensation to you.
The submission of any materials to Boeing, including the posting of
materials to any forum or interactive area, irrevocably waives any and
all "moral rights" in such materials, including the rights of paternity
and integrity."

(http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/site_terms.html)


Ken

PS in English these are "moral" rights - "morale" is borrowed from
French and means the mental state of an army :-)