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Old 10-08-2005, 09:26 PM   #96
After a brisk nap
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RLacey
I'm still at a loss to understand this moral right thing. I honestly, genuinely can't see how it can be morally justifiable to infringe copyright, and I honestly, genuinely can't see how it can be immoral to protect that same copyright. Unfair given the fortunes of others, perhaps. Disappointing, yes. But not morally inexcusable.
Let's take an analogy. Say you're the owner of vast estates, immense expanses of land. One of your remote properties lies unused. A group of people decide to build a hospital there, for the health of the poor people who live in the area. For four years they work on the construction of the hospital, giving of their time and contributing building materials. You say nothing. Then, just as the doors to the hospital are about to open, you send a message to your distant domain: "Sorry, this is my land. You're trespassing. You'll have to tear the hospital down."

Sure, you're within your legal rights, but is it a moral thing to do?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rtrooney
The reason these companies do so is because failure to do so might result in the loss of their exclusive rights to their Brand. Sometimes it seems to border on insanity, but, in the protect it or lose it arena, insanity prevails.
This is only true of trademarks, not of copyright. So Vivendi might hypothetically lose control over the name "King's Quest," but they would still retain the copyright over the actual contents of the game.

Simply renaming the game would get around this problem, if that was really the only reason for Vivendi's cease-and-desist notice. For example, Star Control II was renamed The Ur-Quan Masters when it was released as freeware.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scoville
If you feel the original creator has the right to say how his property is used (including forbidding people from making fangames), then you must think it acceptable for the creator to sell their property to a third party, if that is indeed the use he has chosen, correct? So if it is acceptable for a creator to transfer his rights, the right to say how his property is used should also be transfered to the third party, meaning that by the moral code you have decided upon, Vivendi does in fact have every right to do what you are condemning them for.
European law makes a distinction between the copyright and the moral rights of an author. The moral rights (like the right to be identified as the author of the work, the right to not have the work destroyed against your will, and the right to not have the work altered) can not (in most European countries) be reassigned to anyone else, unlike copyright.

Moral rights are not seen as distinct from copyright in the American legal tradition, though appeals to moral rights have earned some authors concessions from the copyright holders (notably comic book work-for-hire creators such as Shuster and Siegel).

So even if we consider just the legal aspects, it's not unambiguous that Vivendi would be afforded the same status as the actual creators of the work. Morally, I think it's obvious that they should not. If Warner Bros. bought all the rights to Harry Potter from JK Rowling and hired other writers to produce more books in the series, do you think they would have the legitimacy of the originals?
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