06-21-2006, 05:09 AM
Three things:
To Ceo:
No, you don't have to submit to all 30 odd K UN members; just have a clause that any legal deposit in one UN member country consitutes legal deposit for the entire UN membership. Consider it reciprocity, or in the American idom, full faith and credit. (E.g., the government of Illinois is obliged to recognise a marriage solemnised in Alaska, the government of New Mexico is obliged to recognise a driver's licence from Texas, despite differing solemnisation and licencing requirements in the various states.)
To Stolidia:
[3. a.] "No legal entity or government may print, display, demonstrate, reproduce, or store in an electronic system any intellectual property without the consent of the copyright holder..."
Certain creations, such as the traditional book, might be fine under this, since you don't have to copy it and a bibliographic record containing basic information (even if stored in an electronic system) would not violate copyright. But even there, making it available to legislators (as the Library of Congress, a legal deposit institution, does), violates "fair use" as defined in the resolution because it is not for educational, private/personal, review or parody purposes. Or maybe one might argue legislators are their own self-parody.
In contrast, any visual material (think maps, globes, charts, diagrams, posters) must be "displayed" to be useful and automatically violates the resolution. This is especially true if one has created scanned images like thumbnails to aid search and retrieval. Commercial art galleries' catalgues would similarly be in violation.
"tore in an electronic system" is another can of worms which conventional books again can probably avoid since brief bib records wouldn't violate copyright. However, what about talking books, which consist of sound signals stored on some medium (phono record, cassette tape, hard drive, optical disc, what have you)? Or a computer programme? Or anything stored on CD-ROM? Any UN nation which required legal deposit for most of the non-traditional media would be in violation of this resolution.
And another thing that eluded me on my first read:
"6. DECLARES that copyrights may be held by any person or legal entity, and may be transfered or sold, but that the original author of the work must always have rights to use his work."
This seems to make copyright both an alienable and inalienable right, namely that you can waive or sell your rights while at the same time retaining them; in effect, selling nothing for something. I'm not trying to be a jerk about this; it just seems that under this system, nobody could commission per occasion or employ full-time an author or artist for a work and then actually own all its rights.
In a related vein, there was an unsual case in Canada a few years ago which upheld the moral rights of an artist. to the artwork sold to a commercial mall or galleria. The artist made some Canada geese and was unhappy when the mall put ribbons on them. Personally, I thought it was bizarre. If an artist doesn't like or doesn't trust a patron or buyer, don't sell art to them; seller's remorse should never enter into it.
To Ceo:
No, you don't have to submit to all 30 odd K UN members; just have a clause that any legal deposit in one UN member country consitutes legal deposit for the entire UN membership. Consider it reciprocity, or in the American idom, full faith and credit. (E.g., the government of Illinois is obliged to recognise a marriage solemnised in Alaska, the government of New Mexico is obliged to recognise a driver's licence from Texas, despite differing solemnisation and licencing requirements in the various states.)
To Stolidia:
[3. a.] "No legal entity or government may print, display, demonstrate, reproduce, or store in an electronic system any intellectual property without the consent of the copyright holder..."
Certain creations, such as the traditional book, might be fine under this, since you don't have to copy it and a bibliographic record containing basic information (even if stored in an electronic system) would not violate copyright. But even there, making it available to legislators (as the Library of Congress, a legal deposit institution, does), violates "fair use" as defined in the resolution because it is not for educational, private/personal, review or parody purposes. Or maybe one might argue legislators are their own self-parody.
In contrast, any visual material (think maps, globes, charts, diagrams, posters) must be "displayed" to be useful and automatically violates the resolution. This is especially true if one has created scanned images like thumbnails to aid search and retrieval. Commercial art galleries' catalgues would similarly be in violation.
"tore in an electronic system" is another can of worms which conventional books again can probably avoid since brief bib records wouldn't violate copyright. However, what about talking books, which consist of sound signals stored on some medium (phono record, cassette tape, hard drive, optical disc, what have you)? Or a computer programme? Or anything stored on CD-ROM? Any UN nation which required legal deposit for most of the non-traditional media would be in violation of this resolution.
And another thing that eluded me on my first read:
"6. DECLARES that copyrights may be held by any person or legal entity, and may be transfered or sold, but that the original author of the work must always have rights to use his work."
This seems to make copyright both an alienable and inalienable right, namely that you can waive or sell your rights while at the same time retaining them; in effect, selling nothing for something. I'm not trying to be a jerk about this; it just seems that under this system, nobody could commission per occasion or employ full-time an author or artist for a work and then actually own all its rights.
In a related vein, there was an unsual case in Canada a few years ago which upheld the moral rights of an artist. to the artwork sold to a commercial mall or galleria. The artist made some Canada geese and was unhappy when the mall put ribbons on them. Personally, I thought it was bizarre. If an artist doesn't like or doesn't trust a patron or buyer, don't sell art to them; seller's remorse should never enter into it.