Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Berne Convention -- copyright or author-right?

On Apr 3, 2006, at 11:30 PM, Joseph Pietro Riolo wrote:

> On 4/3/06, Steven Jamar <stevenjamar[_at_]gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 1. fair use is not explicitly based on freedom of speech; it has
>> its own
>> logic and history other than freedom of speech
>
> Historically speaking, you are correct. However, the First
> Amendment is playing an important role in fair use. Eldred v.
> Ashcroft mentioned the relationship between fair use and
> the First Amendments in several places.
>
>
>> 2. author control over how others treat their works is not
>> censorship. I
>> should be able to make the movie or write the book or paint the
>> painting I
>> want without being required to let others mutilate it. They can
>> go create
>> their own works in response if they so desire.
>
> Here are examples where authors can prevent people from
> using their works if they exercise their moral rights: Parody,
> satire, destruction or mutilation of authors' works as an act
> of protest or political speech, using authors' works in ways
> to criticize their beliefs, ideologies and positions (think of
> Barbie doll or Ty beanie in dirty ways), bringing authors'
> skeleton out of the closet by exposing some passages
> from their very old works that they find very embarrassing.

Are there cases in which this was done? It seems to me, from my distant and unstudied perspective, that parody, satire, criticism are all alive and well in France and in Europe in general.

Rights of integrity of the work an attribution (the essence, though not all, of moral rights) do not seem to unduly in general inhibit speech, even if they limit certain ways of making one's point. I personally do not favor book burning as a way of expression. I think the point can often be made better in other ways.

-- 
Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017
Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567
2900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:stevenjamar[_at_]gmail.com
Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/

"There is no cosmic law forbidding the triumph of extremism in America."

Thomas McIntyre