[d@DCC] Idea exploration: hierarchy of creators' rights?

[Wallace J.McLean]

>Activity: Claiming for oneself a right which should be a creators.
>
>  I am thinking here of things such as claiming to be the author of
>something that someone else is the author of.  It could include a right
>that is protected by government, but is granted to someone else.
>
>  While controversial, I consider "work for hire" to be an example of
>this.  If I sign away my rights as part of an employment contract this is
>my decision to do so.  What I did not sign away in a contract should not
>be taken away from me by governments.

Legislating some manner of certainty as to the legal result stemming from
a certain fact situation is NOT the same as the government "taking away"
something from somebody. If it did, whole swaths of provincial civil law
is as immoral as the sections of the Copyright Act you're indirectly
referring to here.

>  In some cases there are people loudly claiming that their right to swing
>their cane *includes* smashing my nose.

The problem with the cane vs. nose metaphor is that people on both sides
of a controversy will claim to be cane AND nose.

I would like to "swing my cane" by making new use of archival documents
whose authors are long dead. There are some people who see that activity
as striking their "nose".

Conversely, those same people see their cane-swinging as including having
CR control over bits of paper of the same age as those other ancient bits
of paper I'm interested in. In that case, I see their cane as striking MY
nose.


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