[GOAL] Re: CC-BY and open access question: who is the Licensor?

[Heather Morrison]

On 2015-04-13, at 10:35 AM, Chris Zielinski wrote:

> 
> When you say "CC licenses are a waiver of one's rights under copyright", I think this only refers to the right to reproduce the text, and not to other rights such as the author's moral rights. Of the moral rights, CC licenses stress the attribution of authorship - which partially corresponds to the "paternity" and the "misattribution" rights - but are vague regarding the integrity right. The fact that the US is the intellectual home of CC is no doubt to blame, since although the US finally signed Berne, it never adopted the moral rights component of the Treaty (holding that case law covered these issues adequately). This is an unresolved issue, I believe.

Thanks, Chris. This is a useful clarification. To be more accurate, CC licenses are a waiver of some of one's rights under copyright. Arguments can be made that CC licenses introduce new licensing terms that go beyond copyright - the example of CC's use as a means of achieving author moral rights in the U.S. is an apt one. I would also argue that while CC has done considerable good as a push-back against the automatic copyright introduced by Berne and still in effect, widespread use of the licenses might have the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the idea that everything we create has copyright attached. I am not convinced that any CC license approach is optimal in the medium to long term. 

best,

Heather Morrison