Re: Dissertation on "the Internet and Moral Rights"

On 9/30/97, Alan Ragueneau <ragueneaua[_at_]cardiff.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> I am currently working on a dissertation on Moral Rights and the
> Internet. This work includes french, english and american copyright law.
>
> Has anyone cases, articles or statutory documents related to the subject
> thereabove mentioned. I am particularly interested in any materials
> concerning the moral rights in the USA and also the restructuration of
> the american economy around intrenet.

Mark Lemley's online article on copyright issues and the internet contains some treatment of moral rights questions (I don't have the URL right to hand, but it's on his message signature, so just open any message from him to find his site, and navigate from there).

Moral rights in the US are, as you undoubtedly know, protected to a much more limited extent than elsewhere. They are explicitly protected only with respect to works of visual art under sec. 106A of the Copyright Act, and then only for "original" works, which leaves a large question mark covering any digital medium because of the difficulty identifying the "original." A bit over a dozen states have their own moral rights laws (also just covering visual art), of which some cover audiovisual works (e.g. MA) and some (e.g. NY) cover alterations to copies that injure the artist's reputation. A good case under that statute was Wojnarowicz v. American Family Association, 745 F Supp 130 (SDNY 1990).

Most rights that correspond (however loosely) to moral rights as civil law countries understand them are protected in the US under different headings, including some under copyright, some under trademark, some under unfair competition law. Prof. Lemley mentions some of these as they relate to the internet.

There are many articles on the subject of moral rights in the US (most of which lament the lack of more substantial coverage). One of the principal authors of articles on moral rights in the US has been Prof. Edward Damich, but I can't find a current affiliation for him. An article I wrote several years ago for AmJur Proof of Facts (30 Am Jur Proof of Facts 3d 427) has a bibiography citing several articles by Damich. I have an embarrassingly large number of reprints of that article around, so if you'd like one, send me a postal address.

Others on this list can be of greater help on the specifically internet-related issues.

• Vance R. Koven * phone: 617-482-3852 *
• attorney at law * fax: 617-482-4972 *
• 20 Park Plaza Ste. 520 * net: vrkoven[_at_]world.std.com *
• Boston, MA 02116 * *

  ---