French copyright law - illegal to release works to the PD?

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bobnotts
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French copyright law - illegal to release works to the PD?

Post by bobnotts »

In this edit, someone made an addition to the French translation of the score submission guide which my trusty auto translator tells me means:

"Warning if you are French, know that you can not legally assign the copyright to CPDL because legislation on copyright does not allow it."

The original text is "Attention si vous êtes français, sachez que vous ne pouvez pas légalement assigner le copyright à CPDL car la législation sur le droit d'auteur ne le permet pas"

Claude left a message on my talk page to alert me to it.

I don't know anything about this claim by "Bersyl91" but I'd like to know if it has any truth in it (it seems unliklely).
Rob Nottingham
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choralia
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Re: French copyright law - illegal to release works to the PD?

Post by choralia »

I've contacted via e-mail a French person deeply involved in choral music and intellectual property rights since many years. We met in another forum related to some specific software products for music. I've sent to him the link to this topic, and asked his opinion. I hope he will reply via private e-mail to me, or even here directly.

Max
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Re: French copyright law - illegal to release works to the PD?

Post by Cdalitz »

Incidentally the situaton is the same in Germany: it is not possible to put an own work into the public domain, because authorship is simply a fact and copyright terms (70 years after death, in France I believe even longer) cannot be changed.

Actually this is one of the problems that the Creative Commons License is meant to solve. By using the CC-BY license the author makes clear his authorship while at the same time permitting free usage and copying to the public. So putting a work under the CC-BY is almost the same as if the work were in the public domain with the notable exception that authorship must be credited.
choralia
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Re: French copyright law - illegal to release works to the PD?

Post by choralia »

My French contact confirms that the French copyright laws do not contain anything substantially different from the similar laws of most countries. As a general remark, he said that a specific aspect of the French regulations is that they try to better protect the rights of the individual (typically, the author) with respects to the rights of the big players (publishers, producers, etc.).

However, I think that there might be a misconception to correct. The CPDL copyright license is just a license: intellectual property always remains with the author. So, in France like in Germany, if you create a score that contains creative components, you own the intellectual property rights on such components. If you own the property rights of your work, you can decide what is allowed and what is not, what is permitted for free and what is not. It's your property, you decide. And, among thousands of different possible decisions, you may choose to release your work under the conditions defined by the CPDL license.

Honestly speaking, I don't think that any law in a democratic country may limit the freedom of the owner of intellectual property rights to choose the type of copyright license he/she prefers. Especially in France, if specific attention is paid to the rights of the author with respect to the rights of the big players.

In conclusion, I think that the person who added such a note to the French score submission guide may have probably thought that, if you release a work under the CPDL license, then CPDL owns the intellectual property rights for it. This is wrong. Intellectual property rights are owned by the authors, who freely decide to release their works under the CPDL license conditions. So, I propose to remove such a note, and leave a message in the talk page of the person who added the note, explaining the reasons why we think that the note was wrong.

Max
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