I was just reading though the laws on copyrighted creations in my local, and there is a thing called (roughly translated) “Ethical copyright ownership”, translated from google:
and it says that said rights will remain with the creator of the work unless specifically mentioned in the ownership transfer.
is this kind of thing common practice in the world?
also, if i’m in the middle east, and I sell a game though steam(USA) to a guy in Europe, what laws are applied to the whole situation? just one? all of them? depending on state relations(extradition agreement or whatever)? the hell is going on here?
((Opinion, and I’m not a lawyer))
First time I heard about “ethical copyright”.
Normally, what you have is “you are not allowed to use work made by another without permission” and “The author cannot be deprived from being an author”. In case of USA there’s also “fair use” law, which allows you to use copyrighted work for purposes of news reporting and making parodies, but I believe this applies to USA only.
Basically, as far as I can tell the purpose of copyright laws is not to prevent “distortion”, but to prevent copying of the work in any form and making profit from that. Making derivatives also falls under copying.
Regarding your question, some online sources claim that “international copyright laws” aren’t a thing (the information is from 2018), and laws of individual countries apply, along with any treaties that govern that subject.
First for me too, i’m familiar with the general outlines of the copyright laws, they are the same here too.
Fair use also exists here and is about the same ruleset.
That was my understanding too.
I think then that’s basically some redundancy in the law to allow the original creator
an override power if someone buys your work and does something that you don’t see as “ethically fit”, because it’s used defamatorily or something
you must give credit to the original copyright hold unless otherwise permitted by him, or more precisely granted the “original rights” over to you.
Yes i’m aware there isn’t an international default or anything, but if I take my case, Middle east(creator, where most the money ends up) USA(steam, distributer) and Europe(consumer), who’s jurisdiction applies where?
“being recognized as an author” and “having control over distribution” can be recognized as different rights. “Distribution rights” are often signed away to another party while on contract work.
Ethics are not really part of copyright as far as I’m aware.
You definitely need a lawyer here.
I’d expect that laws of the country where the purchase was made would apply.
Meaning, USA laws when it is bought in USA, European laws if it is bought in EU, and so on. Also treaties.
Generally the laws of the country where a sale is made apply. You are operating there because you are selling there, so you have to comply with the law.
When it comes to contracts, such as with a publisher or distribution platform, the contract will usually state which country’s law applies (typically their country).
I’m not aware of similar rights in copyright law elsewhere in the world, though I haven’t examined the laws in detail in most other countries. It sounds like both of these issues are really about once you’ve sold the rights to your work to another entity. In other countries, if you were concerned about either topic you’d cover them in the contract as part of the sale. Though it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do so in a contract even in your own country, in case you ever needed to enforce the contract within another country’s jurisdiction. I am not a lawyer
To some extent the laws of all 3 are applied, though “Europe” as an entity generally doesn’t have laws of its own. There are major commonalities in the copyright laws across the EU and the rest of the continent, but they are implemented by the laws of the individual countries.
The laws which apply to a specific copyright dispute depend on where any potential court case is filed. In any court case, only the laws of that jurisdiction would be applied. A court in France wouldn’t apply the laws of your country or the United States. A court in your country wouldn’t apply the laws of France.
Point 2 is normally referred to as “the moral right to be identified as the author of the work”. It’s fairly common. It basically means that even if you sell the work, your name is still attached as the creator.
Point 1 isn’t something I’ve seen before. It seems like an attempt to prevent defamation and misconstruing the authors intent.
The reality is only the US has the international clout to enforce them copyright laws globally. The EU can enforce their laws for anything going into the EU. Other countries can barely manage to enforce local copyright laws on fully internal transactions.
For all intents and purposes, US copyright law is global copyright law.
I’m vaguely familiar with a similar concept called “Moral Rights”, which you can find out about from this handy info sheet, and does indeed cover “distortion” of a work. It includes:
My layman’s interpretation is that if someone has the rights to reproduce my work (ie: the copyright) they can’t do so in a way that changes the meaning of that work in a way that would be harmful to me.
Example: I write a story which includes a character who says some nasty things. Obviously I am the one who wrote the nasty things, but they do not represent my opinions or beliefs because they are for a fictitious character. If those words were reproduced without context and attributed to me it would misrepresent my own opinions or beliefs, and could quite possibly be harmful. So some places have laws to prevent that kind of thing from happening.
In the US at least, what I think point 1 is getting at is also called ‘derivative rights’. Meaning, you purchase the rights to use my image, but you probably did not purchase the rights to make changes to it, other than cropping it. This protects the copyright holder from having their work altered and used over again and potentially have the person sell it as a new work.
I think that covers any derogatory use as well, so I don’t know that I’ve typically seen it called out as ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’. Where that may come into play is when a model is involved. For example, an image with a model is used to represent a person with a particular illness, or a racist person. The model may have had a clause with the photographer that protects their likeness from being associated with something criminal or immoral. I have heard of that.
The exception in the US is a ‘work made for hire’ contract. That clause makes the purchaser, not the creator, the author of the work. If I bought an image under work for hire, I could alter it since I am legally the author.
What? I think you either buy the ownership rights or buy a license to use the work, if you have ownership on the rights you can make all the changes and derivations you want afaik*, if you only bought a use license you don’t have any ownership.
*as long as you don’t make it or stuff based on it defamatory/derogatory towards the original creator, as per my and @angrypenguin understanding.
The work for hire is a thing too here, if I go to a photographer and have him take my picture I have automatic rights on the picture not him.
Ae you sure that’s the right term? As far as I can tell ‘derivative rights’ have no relationship to copyright law, they relate to residence and immigration. I think you’re thinking of ‘derivative works.’
If you license someone’s copyrighted work, you can use it ‘directly’ any way you want as per any license agreement. However, if you do make changes, creating a ‘derived work’, then the copyright for that derived work is still held by the original creator. You can make changes, if that’s part of the license agreement, but you dont own those changes*,* so you cant redistribute them outside the terms of the original agreement.
So for a stock photograph, if you’ve licensed it for publication in a book*,* then you can use, say, a pixelated version in the book. What you cant do is sell the pixelated version of that photograph, a derived work, to someone else as stock photography.
Anyone vaguely sensible, though, would confirm with the copyright holder that pixelating the image for the book is within the terms of the license agreement. That’s just legal sanity.
You can make them, within the terms of whatever license agreement you have. But you dont own them, the original copyright holder does, so you may not actually be able to use them.
The “automatic” rights thing is far more complicated, too. Bit it’s probably also irrelevant for any practical purposes, because any established creative worker or business will almost certainly have some standard terms and conditions you will agree to in the course of contracting them to do work, and they can set almost whatever they like in there regardless of what the legal default may be.
To my understanding of my local laws and the US laws if you create something that qualifies as copyright-able material while doing your job(artist for a company for example) the default is the rights go to the creator(artist) unless otherwise specified in the work contract.
I think you’re right, it’s ‘derivative work’ that I was thinking of. In my case, I would not give clients a layered photoshop file because I did not want them changing the work without my knowledge, unless they were buying more rights. Typically, an ad agency will buy more rights (and pay more) than an editorial client.
In the case of editorial work, my name would appear next to the image as a credit. If I allowed people to make changes without my knowledge (such as pixelating the image), it would appear that this new ‘pixelated’ version is my work. I would argue that could harm my reputation as an artist. More likely, the art director might decide to change the colors but again, as an artist I get to choose my own colors, not the client!