Re: Author's Rights

Mike Holderness writes, amid much that I agree with:
>
> And, yes, there is an argument for the author _in_principle_
> to "control all possible uses of his or her creation", and it's
> about authentication.
>
> A news photograph taken by a French citizen is inherently more
> trustworthy than one taken by a US citizen or UK subject.
>
> The French photographer has the absolute, inalienable right to
> sue for "derogatory treatment" of her work if it is manipulated
> and distorted. This is what is poorly translated into UK law,
> and just barely touched on in the US Act, as "the 'moral
> right' of integrity".
>
> Independent US and UK photographers can, and do, under
> economic pressure, give up that right; and if they take a
> photo in the course of their employment _all_ rights in it
> may be held to belong to their employer.
>
> When it comes to the crunch over the authenticity of a digitally
> stored, processed and distributed photograph -- as it will, soon --
> this difference will be rather important. I've read some very
> entertaining philosophical treatises on what constitutes "reality"
> in a photograph, and I have a heap more to hand in case of
> insomnia. But to my mind it's important that a photographer
> can stand up in court and say "that is what was in front of
> my lens when I pressed the shutter"... and that photographers,
> everywhere, will be able to sue the pants off publishers
> and others who abuse their work. (Similar arguments apply to
> text, music and drama, but they take many more words to describe.)
>

Moral rights probably do help to promote authenticity (though they would do nothing to prevent the photographer herself from altering her image if it suited her to do so). But this right comes at an enormous cost -- we deny to others the right of alteration and improvement. I edited your e-mail message before I responded to it: shortening it, removing earlier messages, and focusing attention on what I wanted to reply to. Should I really be prohibited from doing that in the name of "authenticity"?

Mark Lemley
Assistant Professor, University of Texas School of Law Of Counsel, Fish & Richardson, P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu Received on Mon Apr 15 1996 - 16:27:22 GMT