2008/10/20 Mike Godwin <mgodwin(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
Thomas Dalton writes:
The legal implications do certainly need to be
considered, however.
Moral rights to attribution may well get in the way. Mike Godwin can
advise on US law, but someone needs to make official contact with
lawyers in other jurisdictions and get advice.
FWIW, any lawyer who deals with copyright in any kind of international
environment is aware of moral-rights issues. If specific questions and
concerns come up, of course, I have a network of international lawyers
I can reach out to.
There is a difference between being aware of an issue and knowing how
that issue affects each jurisdiction. It's good to hear that you
already have a network of international lawyers to call on.
This mailing
list is not the place for a detailed discussion
of the law, but that discussion does need to take place (between WMF,
CC, FSF and lots and lots of lawyers from all over the world - this
will probably cost a lot of money since you'll be lucky to find people
willing to work pro-bono is every significant jurisdiction, but is
essential).
I don't think you're correct to suppose that "lots and lots of
lawyers" are required. Copyright is, after all, very largely
harmonized among very many nations as a result of several
international agreements. Also, since United States is a bit of an
outlier when it comes to enforcement of moral rights, we wouldn't
impose a U.S. norm on how to interpret or understand moral rights of
attribution. In implementation, as it happens, I think the moral-
rights issue will turn out to be less of a practical problem than you
imagine (because I don't think attribution problems will generate
enough friction for us to worry about). Moral-rights issues tend to
arise when substantial authorship and attribution questions are
obvious and clear -- in short, not the kind of authorship and
attribution issues that normally arise in a collaborative enterprise
like a Wikimedia project.
While copyright is largely harmonised, does that include moral rights?
From what I've heard, they seem to vary quite
widely. I don't really
imagine anything about them, I don't know enough to,
I just know it's
not an issue that should be dismissed without due consideration. It
really only takes one person to decide to cause a fuss and you end up
with a mess on your hands - I'm not sure it's wise to rely on
something not causing friction to get out of having to follow the law
to the letter.
The thing with experts is that you often need to contact them in order
to find out if there is anything worth contacting them about.