GPL and Moral Rights

Xavi Drudis Ferran xdrudis at tinet.org
Sat Aug 30 11:42:00 UTC 2003


El Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 10:34:40PM +0200, edA-qa mort-ora-y deia:
> 
> The GPL does not appear to make any mention of moral rights, so 
> according to the convention (and some law resources I checked) the moral 
> rights stay with the author (even in the case of copyright assignment).
>

IANAL but I think moral rights are inalienable. You can't sign them away.
You can't license them. It's like right to life. You have moral rights
whatever you do, you can't waive them. So a copyright license can't 
do anything about them. 
 
> 
> What is to prevent any one contributor to a large GPL project from 
> objecting on moral grounds and thereby halting any 
> distribution/modification?  Though our opinions to such objections might 
> vary, I would tend to assume that software is open to such objections.
>


I guess the requirement to keep a log of who changed what (point 2.a) 
would greatly limit your ability to claim moral rights. As long 
as changes to your work are not attributed to you, how can you feel 
offended?. 

I don't think you can object on moral rights about just anything. 

-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis at tinet.org


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