Re: Moral Rights in Copyright

On Fri, 21 Jan 2000, Sara Pangbourne <sap1[_at_]ukc.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> I am currently researching the future of moral rights in
> copyright and would be interested to hear opinions on my
> research.
>
> Copyright in the UK is founded upon economic principles.
> Moral rights were incorporated as a result of the UK
> joining the Berne Convention and they have little actual
> impact for authors because they can be waivered so easily.
> In an increasingly technological age where multiple
> authorship is becoming more common it is likely that the
> use and effectiveness of moral rights will decline to
> become non existant.

Not if we can help it -- though you do get to the nub of the matter on the destructive impact of the waiver clauses.

See my

   'Moral Rights and Author Rights: The Keys to the Information Age',    1998 (1) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT).    <http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/infosoc/98_1hold/>

or archived on my own site:

   <http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike/jilt-mr.htm>     

--
Mike Holderness
http://www.poptel.org.uk/nuj/mike/
<mch[_at_]cix.compulink.co.uk>

 The proposal of any new order or regulation of commerce which comes from 
 [the dealers] ought always to be listened to with great precaution,  and 
 ought never to be adopted till after having been long examined, not only 
 with the most scrupulous, but also the most suspicious attention. 
   It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same 
 with that of the public,  who have generally an interest to deceive  and 
 even to oppress the public,  and who accordingly have on many occasions, 
 both deceived and oppressed it. 
 ---------------------[Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, concluding Book I.]