[dalke]

Yes, I was using a US viewpoint, given that I'm a US citizen, HN is hosted in the US, and most of the participants are also under US copyright jurisdiction. The US doesn't have moral rights like what other countries have. Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. is the Supreme Court example showing that works which have entered the public domain can be edited, and in doing so, remove information about the original authors.

Moral rights, as I understand them, only apply when something "would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation." However, modification depends on copyright. These are two separate things, and I think you agree with that.

Scalia, writing for the Court in the 8-0 decision, points out that Dastar "could face Lanham Act liability for crediting the creator if that should be regarded as implying the creator’s “sponsorship or approval” of the copy." Because Dastar did not include mention of Fox as the original author, there is actually less chance of the new work being 'prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation' and less infringement on moral right.

Therefore, I don't understand how your mentioning of moral rights affects my "one of 250" scenario. Since different countries seem to have different view on what exactly moral rights means, could you explain what the specific principle is and how long that moral right would last?

When you do so, could you also comment on how moral right would change the Dastar case, and how it might affect the following circumstance, also quoted from Scalia's Supreme Court judgement?

"A video of the MGM film Carmen Jones, after its copyright has expired, would presumably require attribution not just to MGM, but to Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote the musical on which the film was based), to Georges Bizet (who wrote the opera on which the musical was based), and to Prosper Mérimée (who wrote the novel on which the opera was based). In many cases, figuring out who is in the line of “origin” would be no simple task."

[vidarh]

Current US copyright law is irrelevant, as I was responding to a discussion where you were giving consequences to removing copyright protection, so I don't know why you bring up current US law at all.

I pointed out that it is perfectly possible to protect moral rights without restricting duplication, something which most countries already do.

Somehow it works, and the world hasn't ended, and there is no massive stream of works where people is butchering the credits, because people actually have respect for that.

[dalke]

I bring up US copyright law because while I understand US law at least somewhat, I don't understand what 'moral law' means. I've researched it, and it doesn't seem to be the same as what people here - including you - believe.

According to US law, if your work enters the public domain, then I can do almost whatever I want with it. I can chop it up into parts, rearrange the order, insert my own scenes, provide MST3K-like overlaps, and so on. What I can't do is imply that you have authorized or condoned the work. Hence the comment in Dastar that had Dastar left the attribution in the film then they might have been sued under the Lanham Act.

Please tell me if what Dastar did to the Fox film was butchering the credits or butchering the work, and if what they did was against the moral rights that you think ought to be used instead.

[icebraining]

US law is not immutable.