2007/6/4, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
Klaus Graf wrote:
In Germany it is not possible to waive all copyright personality rights (Urheberpersönlichkeitsrecht).
This is an interesting statement that non-lawyers keep repeating. (Another one is that "a public domain doesn't exist" in Europe.) How does that work if an employee is writing a manual for Audi or Siemens? Can the company not edit that manual for fear of harming the personal rights of the original author?
The author has the publication rights. Thus, whether or not a company can use the copyrighted works of an employee or not has to adressed in his working contract, which it usually is. What the company may not do is change the work contrary to the original idea of the author, as this is not touched by publication rights. So, if you write an antinazi-piece and your company decides to rewrite it so it becomes a nazi-piece instead, you can sue them.
In Wikipedia, publication rights are regulated via the GNU-FDL. Nevertheless, the author retains the right to publish his work in other circumstances, under different licences and he retains his right to sue anybody, who turns his work contrary to his original idea.
Does the original author get the right to be mentioned as the author of the manual?
As said above, he retains the publication rights. If he does not require you to name his name, that's it. If you use the text under the GNU-FDL, simply follow the GNU-FDL. What you may not do, is name somebody else as the creator.
Bye,
Philipp