From: "Bird, Chris" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:25:35 +0100

Sandy Thatcher has highlighted some situations where a CC licence
might not protect an author and, in doing so, neatly illustrates the
philosophical difference between those that advocate the controlled,
and the open, publishing environment.  Those who advocate CC-BY are
essentially arguing that the value of having work made openly
available outweighs the sorts of potential risk Sandy highlights.

So in direct response, no, I can't cite any cases where such lawsuits
have been found in the plaintiff's favour and I am happy to agree that
there would be an argument either way on the strength of an author's
moral rights to cease and desist certain actions with their work.
What I can't agree is that the potential for these types of cases
merits continuing the closed-shop approach to accessing work which has
been paid for by the public and charitable purse.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 16:06:23 -0500

I'll respectfully have to disagree with Chris Bird here as I do not
believe the bow to "moral rights" embedded in the current CC-BY
license would suffice to protect against these two potential harms to
authors. Remember that I said "poor" translations, not intentionally
bad ones that might be considered to "distort, mutilate, modify" the
original work. And I think it would be highly unlikely that inclusion
of an article in an anthology that the author objected to for, say,
ideological reasons would be deemed "derogatory" in the sense of that
term as used in European copyright law. I would be interested to know
if Mr. Bird can cite any cases where lawsuits have been brought on
such grounds and been found to be in the plaintiff author's favor.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: "Bird, Chris" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:53:32 +0100
>
> I agree with Klaus Graf's post and would also add:  CC-BY *does*
> protect authors against having poor translations done or against
> having their articles reprinted in anthologies where the context might
> be offensive to the authors, through the author's moral rights, which
> give authors the right to be correctly attributed and to object to
> derogatory treatment of the work.  Correct attribution would certainly
> include reference to the fact that a work had been translated, hence
> the reader would be on notice.  Including work in an anthology
> offensive to the author would stand a pretty good chance, I think, of
> constituting derogatory treatment.
>
> Of course, there are cross-jurisdictional issues with recognising and
> enforcing moral rights, but these considerations also arise when
> enforcing copyright itself.  They are not a good argument, in my
> opinion, for re-enforcing what Jan Velterop appropriately terms "the
> control attitude publishers are used to in a subscription
> environment", especially when the benefits of an open environment,
> which are well-rehearsed on this forum and elsewhere, are now so
> widely accepted.
>
> Chris Bird