Re: CLUEBAT: copyrights, infringement, violations, and legality

[Lynn Winebarger <owinebar@free-expression.org>]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 12:58, Henning Makholm wrote:
> Scripsit Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>
> > * Some countries, particularly some in Europe, have a concept of "moral
> >   rights" that attach to creative works.  I admit I am not too familiar
> >   with these, but they are not the same thing as copyright and have
> >   little in common with copyright.
> 
> Over here they do. The right to be identified as the work's author,
> etc., and the monpoly on copymaking, are two facets of the very same
> legal concept, at least in Danish law and to the best of my knowledge
> in EU law in general. We call this concept "ophavsret", which could be
> literally translated to "authorship right" - but the only English word
> that would be generally recognised as denoting the same concept is
> "copyright".

    I could be wrong, but can't you distinguish the moral rights from the
copyrights by which ones you can trade?  I thought there was no
legally binding way for an author in Europe to contract away or sell their
moral rights, but they could contract away or sell outright the exclusive 
right to make and distribute copies (still subject to the moral rights).  
Isn't that the distinction between a property right and a 
human/natural/moral right?
   Of course it also means the property right is weaker in Europe 
(and apparently Canada) than in the US, for both the ownership of
the actual thing that is the embodiment of the expression and 
the copyright, and thus less economically valuable.

Lynn