Re: Copyright: Form, Content, and Prepublication Incarnations

From: Joseph Pietro Riolo <riolo_at_VOICENET.COM>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 12:59:50 -0500

On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Fytton Rowland <J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK> wrote:
>
> In European Union law the distinction is clear. Copyright, as the term
> "intellectual property" implies, is a piece of property that can be bought
> and sold; so if I sell the right to make copies of my novel to Stevan, he
> can quite legitimately sell as many copies of it for his sole profit as he
> likes (but with me identified as author on the title page). But EU law
> also has "moral rights", which have no financial value and are
> non-transferable, and these include the right of the author to be
> identified as author of the work. ...

The U.S. does not have the moral rights for many kinds of works
except for the visual art works. The right of authorship that
is owned by the authors of the works of the visual art cannot be
transferred to other people but can be waived by the authors.

> .... I realise the US law is different, but
> surely it cannot allow false attribution of authorship?

As long as the writer understands the consequence and gives up
all of his copyright to the pseudo-author in exchange for money
or other things, that is their business.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo_at_voicenet.com>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this
post in the public domain.
Received on Fri Nov 09 2001 - 19:35:54 GMT