Subject: Moral Rights of the Author, and of the Public?
From: Mikael Book (book@kaapeli.fi)
Date: su 16 elo 1998 - 20:42:31 EEST
Dear ecup-list subscribers,
at the address:
http://www.alcs.co.uk/news_speech_duffy.html
one may lookup the speech given by Maureen Duffy (of the Authors'
Licensing & Collecting Society) at the recent EU conference on Creativity
and Intellectual Property Rights.
In her speech, Maureen Duffy defends the moral rights of the author
against the increasing "tampering" from the side of "producers and
publishers" who "have realised the economic significance of these
rights". She calls for harmonisation "upwards" of the moral rights of the
author, and notes that a strengthening of the moral rights is also in the
interest of the consumer, who needs "essential guarantees of attribution
and provenance".
She does not speak about moral rights of the public. However, we should
perhaps start to speak about the moral rights of the public. Are not the
"essential guarantees of attribution and provenance" moral rights of the
public as well as of the author?
Whatever language we may choose, it should be clear to everybody that
creators and the public (I prefer to consider myself a citizen, and a
member of the public, rather than as a consumer) share important common
interests.
The commercialisation of culture has (once again) reached the point where
culture itself must turn against it. Of course, Ms Duffy's speech is not
the only sign of this turn, but in the context of the EU and coming from a
distinguished representative af a "collecting society", it is a cheerful
sign. The brochure of the "Societé des Auteurs et Compositeurs
Dramatiques" against the intellectual property clause of the MAI (see
http://www.sacd.fr/f_ami.html), is another and more outspoken statement of
the right of the author versus the right of the investor and salesman, who
somehow (i.e. by using his economic power) has succeeded in getting hold
of the copyright.
Yours,
- Mikael Böök
Mikael Book * Katto-Meny * Tallbergink 1/39 * FIN-00180 Helsinki
book@kaapeli.fi * Phone +358-9-6947730 * Fax +358-9-27090369
gsm 040 5511 324
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