David Gerard wrote:
On 16/05/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Paragraph 1 of Resolution:Licensing policy is clarified: The
licensing policy does not apply to any inalienable moral rights associated with a work.
Does it apply to moral rights codified in a licence, e.g. some of the CC 3.0 licenses? Are those free-enough or not? There's lots of discussions on Commons talk:Licensing, but surely a Commons talk page shouldn't be setting WMF-wide policy on such a matter.
It seems that introducing "inalienable moral rights" into our rules opens up a really be can of worms. The views on this concept in the English and non-English speaking are heading in opposite directions, and also involve where the different legal systems are heading in opposing directions. Although they tend to be legislated in association with copyrights they are different.
We often speak of having our content be free in the economic sense of copyright, and to have that freedom applicable in as many countries as possible. I think that the freedom to modify is an integral part of that policy. A regime where American users can modify a work, but where Europeans are not even allowed to permit modification of their own work is not free at all. I would prefer that we make it clear that uploading implies licensing the right to modify.
Until there is considerably more clarity about moral rights we would do better not to introduce that term in our policies at all.
Ec