[License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?

[Henrik Ingo]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 5:09 AM, Johnny Solbu <johnny at solbu.net> wrote:
> On Friday 17 August 2012 02:15, Russ Nelson wrote:
>> but it's clear that OSI
>> Approved Open Source contributions from people who live in countries
>> that claim Moral Rights is inferior to people who live in countries
>> which don't.
>
> Says who?
> And why?

I believe Finland has the concept of Moral Rights. As a IANAL summary,
the concept seems to be that even if I license or sell away the
commercial rights to my creation, I retain certain rights that I can
never give away, such as the right to be correctly cited as the author
of my works (which most FOSS licenses require anyway) and weird things
like the right to forbid the use of my work for pornography or other
things someone might find against my morality.

I have never heard anyone actually asserting this for software.
Further, some contracts I've signed, such as with Sun Microsystem,
included language to the effect that if there are parts of my
copyright that I cannot license away, I nevertheless irrevocably waive
my right to assert the moral rights in court, even if they are still
mine since they cannot be transferred/licensed. I have no idea if such
a waiver would mean anything in court since the whole point of the law
is quite the opposite.

henrik



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