Re: Moral rights (Was: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity)

Pascal Kamina <pkamina[_at_]club-internet.fr> wrote:
>
> Moritz Roettinger <moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 01 Sep 1998, Pascal Kamina <pkamina[_at_]club-internet.fr> wrote:
> > >
> > > Just a remark to say that the concept that copyright is not
> > > transferrable inter vivos is a concept developed under German law,
> > > which is not shared by other "author's right" systems. For example
> > > under French law copyright (i.e. author's rights less moral rights)
> > > is freely transferrable (subject to mandatory rules regarding
> > > contracts and specific prohibitions, such as the prohibition of
> > > assignments of future works).
> >
> > Well, this migut be a question of definition. Under German and
> > Austrian law you may, of course, transfer the "exploitation rights,
> > economic rights" ("Verwertungsrechte") by means of license. But you
> > can't transfer the whole copyright including the moral rights.
>
> But can you "assign", instead of "license", these economic rights? My
> understanding was that under German law "economic rights" could only be
> "licensed" (due to the "personal" nature, etc. of copyright). I am
> wrong?
>
> Under French law an assignment of economic rights is possible, since
> copyright ("economic" rights) is considered as a property right. By
> contrast, it is generally thought (although it is being discussed), that
> moral rights have a different nature (they belong to the category of
> "rights of personality"), which would explain why they are not
> transferrable nor waivable.

Before giving you an answer, could you just clarify the difference between "licensing a right" and "assigning a right"? Thanks in advance!

Moritz Roettinger
<moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> Received on Fri Sep 04 1998 - 15:05:17 GMT