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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada

Re: Ask Great Granny, and she can tell you a story about copyright...

From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk_-at-_chinet.com>
To: flora-admin-help_-at-_flora.org
Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 14:08:59 -0500 (CDT)

At 1:45pm -0400, 05/31/03, Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca> wrote:
>On Thu, 29 May 2003, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>Moral rights (which includes the right of attribution) can be waved, but they
>can not be ceded to someone else.  If you don't yet know about moral rights,
>and protecting what Ms Dickson was wanting to protect, then please do some
>research.

>Use rights are largely an economic right, and FLORA.org clearly was never
>intended for the distribution of commercial works.  You can (incorrectly)
>believe that it is unjust for me to expect people to wave economic rights as a
>condition of the use of the $Free$ services of FLORA.org, but that has always
>been the intention.

I haven't misstated your intention in any way. I used the term "injustice" with
regard to the republication of her work without attribution.

>>You've clearly stated that your intent is to allow what happened to Ms.
>>Dickson to happen. With or without proper attribution, the situation was
>>unjust.

>As I have warned before, you should be careful in confusing your different
>interpretation of the law with you misrepresenting my intent which is getting
>dangerously close to an attack on my character.

What did I mistate? Ms. Dickson's work was republished. No, I don't think that
the people who republished it were justified in doing so, even though they were
allowed to do it.

>Where you have yet to indicate the authority for your opinion on Copyright
>law,

Her situation is an example of negative consequences of the rules you propose
for publishing on Flora. All she received, after a complaint, was a half-
hearted attribution that implied that she did the work on someone else's
behalf. No, I don't think she suffered economic harm recoverable under
copyright law (if she retained rights), but she suffered an injustice.

What if some of her answers were changed slightly? What if the derived Web site
made it appear as if she insulted some of the people asking questions, or if
the advice given, if followed, would result in harm to the questioner? Would
you not then agree that that was an injustice?

She'd have no recourse as Flora rules allow derivation.

You'll counter, "That's covered by moral rights."

   Moral rights

   14.1 (1) The author of a work has, subject to section 28.2, the right
   to the integrity of the work and, in connection with an act mentioned
   in section 3, the right, where reasonable in the circumstances, to be
   associated with the work as its author by name or under a pseudonym
   and the right to remain anonymous.

   No assignment of moral rights

   (2) Moral rights may not be assigned but may be waived in whole or i
   part.

   No waiver by assignment

   (3) An assignment of copyright in a work does not by that act alone
   constitute a waiver of any moral rights.

Maybe, just maybe, she'd have recourse if the violator published the derived
work in Canada. But outside of Canada? If published on the Web on a server
outside of Canada, it could still be seen by Canadians. The international
nature of the Web prevents practical protection.

Even if the work were derived from and not misused, there's still no practical
protection from lack of attribution if published outside Canada.

I haven't cared for the way you've brushed off all my objections as "that's
commercial; not Flora's intent to publish commercial works." You've been very
dismissive of the very reasonable concerns I have. There are perfectly valid
reasons why an author should retain some measure of control of his works that
have nothing to do with any commercial value.

Nothing written by a Pednet subscriber and posted to the list has ever been of
a commercial nature. That doesn't translate into there are no circumstances in
which their work could be used to bad intent and that they should enjoy no
protection, even if extremely limited.

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