[Foundation-l] What's appropriate attribution?

[Thomas Dalton]

2008/10/20 Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org>:
>
> 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.