Is Portugal about to make Creative Commons illegal?

Through Twitter we have learned a staggering new development in Portugal, which threatens Creative Commons licences and other open content licensing schemes. According to several reports, the Portuguese Socialist Party is announcing that it will push for a reform to its copyright legislation that will make economic rights inalienable and therefore cannot be waived or renounced. This would equalise for the first time moral and economic rights, the former cannot be waived in Continental Law traditions, but such status has never been awarded to patrimonial rights. The proposal reads: "Article 3, point 1 – The authors have the right to the perception of a compensation equitable for the reproduction of written works, in paper or similar support, for instance microfilm, photocopy, digitalization or other processes of similar nature. […] Article 5 (Inalienability and non-renunciability) – The equitable compensation of authors, artists, interpreters or executives is inalienable and non-renunciable, being null any other contractual clause in contrary." This is a preposterous idea, and we can only hope that it will never see the light of day. Moral rights protect reputation and personality rights, while economic rights protect profit-making and an author's right to be rewarded for the skill and labour spent in creating a work. The fact that these two protect different legal values has meant that they receive separate treatment, at least in the Civil Law tradition. The Socialist Party's argument seems to be that authors should always be rewarded for their work, and that they do not have the right to renounce these rights. The problem is that there are very good reasons why artists may not want to receive a monetary compensation at any given time. Advertisement and promotion are very good examples of this. While we share the idea that artists deserve recognition and remuneration, this should not be in any way an inalienable right. Authors should be able to decide the economic strategy that they want to undertake, and this includes the use of innovative licensing schemes. It seems like the Portuguese Socialist Party has fallen prey to the worst piece of propaganda about culture, namely that only those who profit from their work can produce cultural outputs. This is of course, a complete lie.

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Is Portugal about to make Creative Commons illegal?

Through Twitter we have learned a staggering new development in Portugal, which threatens Creative Commons licences and other open content licensing schemes. According to several reports, the Portuguese Socialist Party is announcing that it will push for a reform to its copyright legislation that will make economic rights inalienable and therefore cannot be waived or renounced. This would equalise for the first time moral and economic rights, the former cannot be waived in Continental Law traditions, but such status has never been awarded to patrimonial rights. The proposal reads: "Article 3, point 1 – The authors have the right to the perception of a compensation equitable for the reproduction of written works, in paper or similar support, for instance microfilm, photocopy, digitalization or other processes of similar nature. […] Article 5 (Inalienability and non-renunciability) – The equitable compensation of authors, artists, interpreters or executives is inalienable and non-renunciable, being null any other contractual clause in contrary." This is a preposterous idea, and we can only hope that it will never see the light of day. Moral rights protect reputation and personality rights, while economic rights protect profit-making and an author's right to be rewarded for the skill and labour spent in creating a work. The fact that these two protect different legal values has meant that they receive separate treatment, at least in the Civil Law tradition. The Socialist Party's argument seems to be that authors should always be rewarded for their work, and that they do not have the right to renounce these rights. The problem is that there are very good reasons why artists may not want to receive a monetary compensation at any given time. Advertisement and promotion are very good examples of this. While we share the idea that artists deserve recognition and remuneration, this should not be in any way an inalienable right. Authors should be able to decide the economic strategy that they want to undertake, and this includes the use of innovative licensing schemes. It seems like the Portuguese Socialist Party has fallen prey to the worst piece of propaganda about culture, namely that only those who profit from their work can produce cultural outputs. This is of course, a complete lie.

Read more detail on Recent Copyright Posts –

This entry was posted in Copyright Law. Bookmark the permalink.

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