[Foundation-l] Re-licensing

[Mike Godwin]

Thomas Dalton writes:

>>  This must be your own idiosyncratic application of the term "moral
>> right."  In copyright, "moral rights" refers to inalienable legal
>> rights that are recognized in law. If you are in a jurisdiction that
>> does not recognize "moral rights," then you don't have them, by
>> definition.
>
> The idea behind moral rights is that they are rights that everyone has
> automatically and the law is just recognising that.

I understand what the *rhetoric* of moral rights is.  But in the  
absence of law establishing and protecting moral rights, you don't  
have any.

> If you are in a
> jurisdiction that doesn't recognise moral rights then (from that POV)
> you still have moral rights, the state is just immoral and doesn't
> enforce them.

A more nuanced and accurate view of the term "moral rights" is that it  
is a term of art relating to copyright and other rights in creative  
works.

> There is a fundamental difference between a right
> granted by law and a pre-existing right recognised by law.

Is this difference based on anything in the physical world?

> That
> difference is irrelevant in a courtroom, which is probably why you
> dismiss it, but there is a difference.

It's true that religious beliefs don't have great force in Western  
courtrooms. I dismiss this particular religious belief not because  
it's irrelevant in a courtroom, however, but because there is no  
evidence in the physical world that this difference exists.

Thomas, you may believe that the longstanding debate between natural  
law and positivists has been resolved in favor of the former, but  
there's no sign that this is true with regard to copyright.  If what  
you were saying were widely accepted, it would be odd that "moral  
rights" obtain as to copyright/creative expression but not as to  
things like property ownership and personal liberty.


--Mike