RE: Moderator

["Zielinski, Christopher" <zielinskic@xxxxxxx>]

Mr Upchurch,

You do not say where you are, and national jurisdiction may matter in
this case. What you are describing sounds like a flagrant breach of your
Berne-Convention sanctioned moral rights. Berne says, in Article 6 bis
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/6bis.html): "(1)
Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the
transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim
authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or
other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the
said work, which would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation." In
national legislations that fully implement Berne, the moral rights of
"paternity", integrity and misrepresentation are vouchsafed.
Unfortunately, in the US, despite its finally being a signatory of
Berne, moral rights were not formally incorporated in the DCMA, as they
were deemed to be covered by existing case law. In the UK, moral rights
are treated as waivable, although the creator has to formally waive them
(done routinely in contracts by some categories of writer, such as
script writers and occasionally academics) and those writing for hire.
In droit d'auteur countries, moral rights are immanent and unwaivable.

For international uses (such as cross posting of e-mail), it is worth
noting that the WIPO Copyright Treaty
(http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html) aligns
itself with Berne: "(2) Nothing in this Treaty shall derogate from
existing obligations that Contracting Parties have to each other under
the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works."
That must be taken to include moral rights.

Hope this is of some use.

Chris Zielinski
Consultant


-----Original Message-----
From: Socspace@xxxxxxx [mailto:Socspace@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 24 April 2005 18:33
To: digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Moderator

Dear Sir or Madam:

Was the appended post deemed inapproriate, or has some error
occurred?

I thank you in advance for your response -- whatever it may be.

Harley Upchurch

_________________________________

Esteemed all:

Should the following request for help be an inappropriate use of the
Digital-Copyright mailing list, I most sincerely apologize.  Howevever,
that I'm submitting it at all is a measure of my
frustration/desperation.
Without getting very far into the whys and wherefores, here is the
relevant history.

Somewhere on the web I came across a source which declared
that subscribers to a newslist/discussion group automatically
acquire a copyright to the messages they post.  Thus, for SOMEONE
ELSE to crosspost one of MY messages to another newslist, without
my permission, would not only be contrary to netiquette, but a
violation of my copyright  -- technically speaking.  However, the
practice has become so common, that trying to kick up a legal fuss
about it would ORDINARILY be rather silly.
.
However, 1) were the crossposting PURPORTED to be an accurate
representation of my original message,  but 2) in ACTUALITY a
(demonstrably deliberate) distortion thereof, and 3) designed to expose
me to ridicule 3) I might indeed have cause for legal action.

I know I must have saved the source somewhere, but (disgracefully)
can not find it.  Nor have I been able to rediscover it on the web.

BTW, reason suggests (or at least, so it seems to me) that the
violation at issue would increase in severity could it to be shown that
'twas but one element in a larger pattern of of harassment and
defamation, for which legal action was already being contemplated.
And, guess what? Such happens to be the case. Surprise, surprise :-)

Thus, I would be very, very grateful were one of you able to refer me to
an authoratative source which makes the points discussed in my
second and third paragraphs above.

Simply your opinion on the subject would also be quite welcome.
But -- should you proffer one -- please say whether or not I could
feel free to quote it WITH ATTRIBUTION.

Thanking any respondents in advance, I am

Harley Upchurch (who is clearly a "newbie" on this list