Rudy Gevaert writes:
Hallo,
I have a little question concerning the GPL.
As stated in the Berner convention about the author law, you have two kind of rights in the author law: the moral rights and the ability rights(? the right of reproduction, public announce right, ...).
You can give away your ability rights, but you always get to keep your moral rights. But what when I release my software under the GPL?
The Berne convention
http://www.wipo.int/clea/docs/en/wo/wo001en.htm (see also contracting parties http://www.wipo.org/treaties/documents/english/pdf/e-berne.pdf)
says:
-------------------------------------- Article 6bis
[Moral Rights: 1. To claim authorship; to object to certain modifications and other derogatory actions; 2. After the author's death; 3. Means of redress]
(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 honor or reputation.
(2) The rights granted to the author in accordance with the preceding paragraph shall, after his death, be maintained, at least until the expiry of the economic rights, and shall be exercisable by the persons or institutions authorized by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed. However, those countries whose legislation, at the moment of their ratification of or accession to this Act, does not provide for the protection after the death of the author of all the rights set out in the preceding paragraph may provide that some of these rights may, after his death, cease to be maintained.
(3) The means of redress for safeguarding the rights granted by this Article shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed. --------------------------------------
Some countries such as the US made an exception that invalidates Article 6bis. In other countries such as France the author of a program cannot, under any circumstances, transmit her moral rights to anyone. Publishing a software under the GNU GPL in France, for instance, has no effect on the moral rights. The Berne convention allows the authors to use their moral rights in every countries that did not discard the Article 6bis.
A lawyer can confirm this if needed, with a wording that is possibly more convincing ;-)
Cheers,