[Foundation-l] What's appropriate attribution?

[Mike Godwin]

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.

>  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.


--Mike





--Mike