[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?