Somehow I think the "contrary to morality" words in the Chessmaster
shrinkwrap contract means something else, like using the game for gambling
or some other sort of illicit activity... it's funny how the company isn't
really sure what it means... but on moral rights...
we've had them in Canada for many years now. They match the Australian ones so well summarized by Mr. Shulze below.
Two interesting applications here have been the right of an artist of a public sculpture located in a shopping mall (the artist is Michael Snow) to prevent the scupture from being "dressed up" with ribbons at Christmas and the right of the author of a pop protest-type song titled "Rise Up" (the group is the Parachute Club) to prevent the song from being used in a bread commercial. What one might do with Chessmaster that's similarly egregious tests the imagination.
The legal community has responded to the inclusion of moral rights in our Copyright Act with licenses, exhibition or sales contracts that often include a waiver of moral rights. I know of no instance where such a waiver has been tested, but it would seem to be a shaky proposition given that the rights seem to underlie the statutory regime.
Robert Labossiere
Australia has recently adopted this concept of "moral rights" as
well. It is not a control as such of exploitation but rather a right
to enable an artist for the life of the author only to control
integrity of a work eg the right to have the authors identity to be
shown on the work, the right to object to alteration of the work and
the right to object to association of the work with others. This is
entirely distinguished from economic rights which can be dealt with
as with conventional IP rights.
We are only now getting used to this concept. It is also very
difficult for the moral rights to be contracted away.
Howard Schulze
On 05/10/2005, at 6:30 AM, JFN wrote:
> It would seem a loose translation of "droit morale" -- the broader
> rights accorded artists and authors under some European laws to
> control the exploitation of their works. It comes, I think, from
> the view that intellectual property ownership and control is a
> natural right -- a view that is at odds with the American approach,
> which views it as a statutory grant.
>
> John Noble
>
> At 4:45 PM -0400 10/3/05, S. Martin Keleti wrote:
>
>> At 11:50 AM 10/3/2005, josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> I encountered a statement in license that I do not fully
>>> understand and I am turning to this discussion forum for help in
>>> interpreting the statement. As a gift, my wife gave me
>>> Chessmaster 10th Edition. After long procrastination, I finally
>>> decided to install it in my PC. As the installation was
>>> proceeding, the license was presented to me. Because I was going
>>> to use the software for my other project, I had to read license
>>> very carefully. The portion that stopped me from continuing the
>>> installation is this: It is not permitted: - To
>>> make copies … - To operate … - To use it contrary to
>>> morality or the laws in force, - To modify …
>>> - To transmit … - To create …. - To decompile, reverse
>>> engineer or disassemble … Exactly what does "contrary to
>>> morality" mean? I searched Internet and found some references on
>>> it. But, all of them are related to patent. I could not find
>>> anything relating to the use of software. So, I sent a question
>>> on the meaning of "contrary to morality" to Ubi Soft's on-line
>>> support. (Ubi Soft is the manufacturer of Chessmaster 10th
>>> Edition.) After hearing nothing from the on-line support for one
>>> or two weeks, I decided to call Ubi Soft's support. I asked the
>>> person who answered my call about the meaning of "contrary to
>>> morality". He put me on hold for a while (I did not time it but
>>> I estimated that it was one or two minutes). He then explained to
>>> me that it was a blanket statement to prevent people from
>>> breaking any copyright laws. I was tempted to ask him to
>>> elaborate that but knowing that he was not expert in legal
>>> language, I thanked him for his time and I hanged up phone. I
>>> thought more about what he said. If it is really that obvious
>>> that "contrary to morality" means breaking any copyright laws,
>>> why is this specific wording chosen over other wording? Is this
>>> an example where Ubi Soft went overboard and borrowed the
>>> language from patent? If "contrary to morality" actually is
>>> applicable to Chessmaster, can anyone think of examples where
>>> using Chessmaster is contrary to morality? Joseph Pietro Riolo
>>> <josephpietrojeungriolo[_at_]gmail.com> <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>
>>>
>>
>>
>> My understanding of "contrary to morality" is that it is *broader*
>> than simply contrary to copyright laws. I've seen the term in
>> discussions of civil law jurisdictions (e.g., France, Germany,
>> Switzerland), often synonymously with "contrary to public policy."
>> I don't believe that it's limited to patent law, but that's just
>> the area in which you came across it; it can come up in the field
>> of contracts as well (for example, whether contracts relating to
>> gambling are enforceable ), and I believe that it comes up in the
>> area of free speech, too.
>>
>> Given that Ubisoft is headquartered in France (http://
>> www.ubisoftgroup.com/AboutUbisoft/Default.aspx?cpid=181), its use
>> of this term shouldn't be surprising. This kind of boilerplate
>> probably finds its way into many other types of legal documents,
>> whether or not any particular application is contemplated; but if
>> you should come up with a use of Chessmaster that is contrary to
>> morality, Ubisoft's covered. It may have other products that are
>> susceptible to such illegal uses, and it's just easier to leave
>> that clause in.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> S. Martin Keleti
>> Cohen and Cohen
>> 740 North La Brea Avenue
>> Los Angeles, CA 90038-3339
>> 323.938.5000
>> 323.936.6354 fax
>>
>>
>>
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Visit the CNI-COPYRIGHT e-mail list archive at <https://mail2.cni.org/Lists/CNI-COPYRIGHT/>. Received on Fri Oct 07 2005 - 02:00:55 GMT
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