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

[Lawrence Rosen]

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Hi Ben,

 

It would be difficult for Linus Torvalds to complain about porn when he
intentionally released an operating system that is so ideally suited for the
delivery of porn. It would be like Michelangelo complaining because
derivatives of his statue of David revealed some private parts.

 

/Larry

 

 

 

Description: http://www.richardclover.co.uk/images/MichelangeloDavid2.jpg

 

Source: http://www.richardclover.co.uk/node/39

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Tilly [mailto:btilly at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 9:45 AM
To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com; license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: [License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public
domain?

 

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Lawrence Rosen <
<mailto:lrosen at rosenlaw.com> lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:

> Russ Nelson asked:

>> Larry, have you ever been driving over a bridge that collapsed?

> 

> Not that I can recall. :-) Out of fear of that very result, though, I 

> support increased infrastructure spending by our government.

> 

> But I don't stress out every time I drive over a bridge or when I use 

> open source software that is owned by an individual who wants to 

> reserve her moral rights. Indeed, I respect moral rights in the ways 

> that I license and use open source software and I advise respectful 

> attribution whenever appropriate. Does the protection of moral rights 

> require anything onerous of you?

 

Let's see.  Linus Torvalds is Finnish and began Linux in Finland.  As Henrik
pointed out, Finnish law has the concept of moral rights, and one of those
rights is the right of integrity, which can allow the copyright holder to
restrict the use of his copyrighted material in ways that infringe on his
honor.  In particular you can say that you can't use that work for
pornography.  Oleksandr pointed us to

 <http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726>
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726

which says that this moral right can be enforced even in countries which do
not have moral rights in their copyright law.

 

I am not a lawyer.  I know even less about international law.  My knowledge
of this topic is, in fact, pretty much half an hour with Google following up
references in this discussion.  But it looks to me like Linus might have the
ability to sue a US pornography company that is using Linux to stream their
porn based on his moral right rising from Finnish copyright law.  If so,
then that would run directly counter to OSD #6.

 

I trust that Linus never would do so.  But if he and many other European
contributers to open source projects actually *could* do that, that's not
exactly a small detail.  (Particularly if you were loving using open source
to distribute your loving.)

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