Moral Rights Research Articles

Group-differentiated rights for Indigenous communities that straddle borders

ABSTRACT This paper examines the normative justification for special rights for Indigenous peoples whose traditional territories straddle contemporary international borders. Examining the Mohawks of Akwesasne (Quebec, Ontario, and New York state) and the Tohono O’odham (Arizona and Sonora, Mexico) as cases, I demonstrate how state claims to territorial jurisdiction and border regulation often interfere with the lives of Indigenous people whose social, cultural, economic, spiritual and political practices and relationships cluster across contemporary international boundaries. Through the concept of group occupancy interests, I argue that members of Indigenous nations whose territories straddle borders possess special rights to access and use lands presently claimed by states of which they are not recognized citizens. Moreover, I demonstrate how border-straddling Indigenous nations challenge the unlimited sovereignty of contemporary states with respect to border policy: the occupancy and self-determination interests of Indigenous peoples may ground the moral rights of their communities to co-manage international border crossings with states. Finally, I argue that collective interests in cross-border political identities and self-determination can ground the rights of Indigenous peoples to form unified cross-border jurisdictional units that demand recognition by states, alongside the rights of Indigenous peoples to regulate group membership.

Meta-Morphosis of Copyright and User-Generated Content: Can East Asia’s Emerging Policies Navigate through the Metaverse?

Abstract Social-creative metaverses, which foster user creativity and encourage user-generated content, promise a revolution in digital creativity. However, metaverse developers often enforce strict regulations on user-generated content through user terms and conditions, restricting or permitting its reuse. These rules place an artificial barrier between users and their copyright, often waiving moral rights and making economic rights subject to mandatory licences. Using Second Life as a case study, this article demonstrates how metaverse regulations undermine users’ intellectual property rights and control over their creations. Furthermore, it examines emerging intellectual property policies in Japan, South Korea, and China, noting a lack of awareness regarding the impact of these regulatory layers on user creativity. Highlighting the importance of the external regulation of user terms and conditions, the article proposes potential policies and strategies for East Asia and beyond to protect users’ copyright ownership and mitigate the negative effects of restrictive metaverse terms and conditions.

Analysis of Copyright Disputes in the Welcome Monument Sketch Case: Between Economic Rights and Obligations of Public Institutions (Case Study of Supreme Court Decision Number 35/Pdt.Sus-Hak Copyright/2020)

The copyright dispute over the Welcome Monument Sketch between the heirs of the late Henk Nunjung and PT. Grand Indonesia focuses on economic rights related to the use of a logo that resembles a sketch by Henk Nhang without permission. The heirs claim the right to economic compensation because PT. Grand Indonesia used this logo from 2004 to 2020 without approval. Based on Law no. 28 of 2014 concerning Copyright, the moral and economic rights of copyrighted works remain with the creator or his heirs. The court decided that the copyright for the sketch was Henk Nhang's personal property as an artist, not the result of his official relationship as Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta. As a result of this violation, PT. Grand Indonesia is required to pay compensation of Rp. 16,000,000,000 to the heirs. This case emphasizes the importance of economic rights in protecting copyrighted works from unauthorized exploitation.

In Defense of Claim Rights

The claim-right model of rights contends that Hohfeldian ‘claim-rights’ defined in terms of a constitutive correlativity with directed duties mark a distinctive phenomenon encompassing paradigmatic moral rights. Recent criticisms suggest this traditional model faces a dilemma: any plausible specification (i) is extensionally or explanatorily inadequate or (ii) cannot serve a distinct normative purpose intended by those invoking rights. This work defends the claim-right model against this line of critique. It demonstrates that proper understandings of the extensional/explanatory adequacy criteria and the intended taxonomic role claim-rights are meant to fulfil dissolve the apparent dilemma and support the model.

Digitized Disciplinary System and Social Disenchantment An Analysis of Chinas Social Credit System

With the advancement in technology and big data in recent years, disciplinary systems present an increasing tendency towards digitization. Chinas digital Social Credit system, established to evaluate individuals, businesses, and local institutions trustworthiness, serves as a typical model. Through the lens of Michel Foucaults account of disciplinary power and Max Webers account of rationality and disenchantment, the paper is directed to analyze Chinas digital credit systems implications on the publics moral governance rights. Admittedly, the digital scoring system offers advantages in regard to social stability and public utility; it is suitable to Chinas ideological, historical, and geographical character. However, its digital mass surveillance, through fusing value and instrumental rationality and oversimplifying morality, aggravates the spiritual crisis of disenchantment. In return, the collective disenchantment of the public leads to problematic social and political consequences. In response, the paper offers legislative and propagandize related policy suggestions to allay the undesirable outcomes of digital discipline.

Copyright Protection for AI-generated Works in Tanzania: The Need for Legal Reforms

This paper examines the current legal framework in Tanzania regarding copyright protection for works autonomously generated by artificial intelligence (AI). It highlights the lag in Tanzanian law, specifically the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act of 1999, in addressing the issues caused by AI-generated works. Advancements in AI, especially generative AI, are enabling the creation of literary, artistic, and musical works without human input. This challenges traditional concepts of authorship and ownership of literary and artistic works. The paper identifies limitations in the Tanzanian copyright law, which only recognizes human authorship and thus excludes AI-generated works from protection. The consequences of this exclusion include the loss of economic rights for developers and owners of AI technology in works generated by AI, the stifling of innovation due to a lack of incentive, and a lack of legal clarity on moral and economic rights over such works. The paper further explores the human rights implications of this legal gap. It proposes that rights such as the ownership of intellectual property and fair economic gain from one's work should extend to the developers or owners of generative AI technologies. Borrowing from the UK’s approach of attributing authorship to those who arrange for AI-generated works, the paper advocates for similar reforms in Tanzania. The proposed legal changes aimed at creating a copyright framework that better supports innovation, investment, and fair economic incentives for creators in the digital era

Moral rights in Australia: a case law retrospective—Part 1

Moral rights in Australia: a case law retrospective—Part 1

Moral rights in Australia: a case law retrospective—Part 2

Moral rights in Australia: a case law retrospective—Part 2

Do girls have a (moral) right to compete in sporting contests that exclude boys?

This paper explores the moral right of girls to compete in sporting contests that exclude boys, examining the ethical implications of gender segregation in sports. It argues that boys-only competitions are morally problematic, reinforcing gender stereotypes and perpetuating structural injustices. The paper also critiques open-division competitions, which can disadvantage girls due to inherent physiological differences. Through a review of historical and contemporary cases, the study highlights the necessity of girls-only competitions to ensure fairness and to challenge societal norms that undermine female athletes. The conclusion advocates for a dual system of girls-only categories alongside open divisions, allowing girls the choice to compete independently or alongside boys, depending on their preferences and aspirations.

Protecting Street Art and Graffiti as Artistic Works Under Indian Copyright Law: An Analysis

ABSTRACT Street art, known for its temporary nature and presence in public spaces, faces challenges in copyright protection. Despite these hurdles, street art is increasingly recognized as a legitimate artistic expression warranting copyright safeguards. This abstract explores how street art can be protected under copyright law, beginning with its definition and qualification as an artistic work under copyright statutes. It addresses practical and legal issues such as authorship, ownership, and the impact of public location. This study illustrates different approaches to protecting street art through circumstances and some legal precedents. It also examines the role of moral rights and public interest in balancing artists' rights with property rights and urban aesthetics. The abstract proposes legal reforms or policy interventions to enhance copyright protection for street art while maintaining its cultural integrity, contributing to the discourse on the intersection of copyright law and urban art.

The Author’s Right of Integrity in Public Contracts in Estonia Based on Architectural Work

The paper presents analysis of whether an author’s moral rights are transferable or licensable in public contracts. At present, the European Union lacks a unified approach to regulating intellectual-property rights in public procurement: its public-procurement directives leave open the option of assigning these rights to a particular contracting entity and do not set minimal or default conditions for handling them in case the public contract does not specify intellectual-property rights’ allocation. The paper delves into the question of whether moral rights are transferable/licensable and of how moral rights should be regulated in public contracts in Estonia through the lens of analysis based on legal literature. Specific attention is given to case law on moral rights in Germany, France, and Spain, in aims finding a mechanism for moral rights’ regulation that is suitable for the Estonian setting. These first steps of examination reveal that the essence of moral rights precludes them being transferable since moral rights are bound to the personality of the author. Initial analysis shows also that moral rights in Estonia are only partly licensable, with only those moral rights that overlap the author’s economic rights proving licensable, while the rights connected to the author’s personality are not subject to licensing. For these reasons, courts need to weigh how authors might exercise their moral rights such that any transfer of their those rights cannot enable authors to interfere with the exercise of the economic rights. This entails limiting the exercise of moral rights, a matter that merits deeper examination.

Милиция/полиция в (пост)советской массовой культуре (к исторической иконографии власти)

The idea of the police as a “good order” from the Polizeiwissenschaft of absolutism was developed in the biopolitical model of caring for the population of the Modern era, engaged in ensuring safety and well-being. Being a product of mass society, the modern state has focused on influencing public opinion. In the XIX–XX centuries, there was a counter-movement of police supervision and art which gave rise to ‘police aesthetics’. Cinematography was an effective means of forming a desirable image of the Soviet militia in the post-war period of normalization of public life. By contributing to the Soviet myth of developed socialism, militia cinema contributed to a screen-to-life transfer of a new norm of trust between representatives of power and citizens. This constructivist cinema involved the viewer in the cinematic reality by likening them to the main character, a militiaman who acts as a moral guide. In addition to forming the image of the ‘familial militia’, intellectual militia cinema—with its focus on professionalism—is actively developing. The most popular version of the latter is militia cinema that thematizes the moral rightness of militia officers fighting crime in the name of Soviet citizens. Involvement in the cinematic reality through assimilation, novelty, memory, and imagination included the romanticization of the historical events of the revolution. Militia cinema was inverted during the years of the perestroika. It exploited the effect of novelty associated with the viewer's immersion in emerging market relations. The viewer's interest was focused on the wrong, criminal, side of public life. Crime is romanticized, the militia is stigmatized. From constructing the myth of cooperation between the government and the population, militia cinema moves on to deconstructing the myth, achieving an effect of denigration. The fashion for American cinema brings elements of action, thriller, horror. The viewer is no longer included in the imperious project of transforming reality; they are attracted by the illusion, the spectacle. The latest police cinema, overcoming total deconstructionism, is busy reconstructing the spirit of Soviet militia cinema in modern settings. Oscillating between the intention to generate positive images of the police and the demonstration of the “truth of life”, modern police cinema contains the natal shoots of a new cinema in which the image of the police is important for the normalization of public life.

Moral rights and the protection of classics: A study of §51 in the Swedish Copyright Act of 1960

This article examines §51 of the Swedish Copyright Act 1960, generally known as ‘the protection of classics’ in relation to international discourses on copyright in the mid-twentieth century. The provision in §51 protects works of cultural significance by deceased authors and artists against reproductions that are considered offensive, even if the works are in the public domain. This article analyses the arguments and motives that led Swedish legislators to draft §51 and contextualises them internationally. The origin of the protection of classics is rooted in the notion of a paying public domain, a provision which existed in various countries in the twentieth century that allowed the state to collect royalties for works in the public domain. In Swedish copyright law this economic right was reinterpreted as a moral right to protect classical works. Unlike conventional moral rights, this right aimed at protecting the interests of the public rather than the integrity of the author. The protection of classics, and to an extent the notion of a paying public domain, can be seen not so much as a regulation of intellectual property but more as a statement about cultural heritage. By showing how the protection of classics operated within the international discourse on copyright law of the twentieth century, this article explores the relation between moral rights, a paying public domain and cultural heritage.

The Solutions for The Conflict of Laws Relating to Copyright and Its Exploitation" A Comparative Study"

Determining the applicable law for copyright is a complex issue in the jurisprudence of private international law. This is because it is an intangible moral property, meaning that the nature of the subject to which the right is attributed differs from other material rights. In addition, most legislations have not established specific attribution rules for moral rights, making it difficult to determine the applicable law for copyright. Hence, the research problem is embodied in the absence of explicit and clear texts that address the issue of conflict of laws if it relates to the author’s topics moving between the scope of more than one law, which leads to an overlap in the scope of the applications of the law that related to those rights, raising the issue of which law should apply and which one is more accurate in achieving justice. The importance of this research is evident in raising the awareness among rights holders of the existence of a legal organization that protects the copyright, which may ease their minds due to their prior knowledge of the existence of a law that protects the product of their mind on the one hand and deters the aggressor on the other hand. Moreover, this study aimed to demonstrate the validity of the laws referred to by the traditional attribution rules to resolve conflicts of laws in matters related to copyright. It must be noted that the study adopted the analytical and descriptive comparative approach between Jordanian law and Iraqi law and the role of each in resolving problems arising from conflicts of laws.The study found that the Jordanian legislator specifically addressed unpublished works in Article 57 of the Copyright Protection Law, clarifying whether they fall under the law's provisions. However, we did not find an explicit provision in the Iraqi Copyright Protection Law regulating the issue of unpublished works. However, the researcher recommended that the Jordanian legislator conclude new bilateral or regional agreements in addition to joining international agreements due to the inadequacy or inappropriateness of traditional agreements related to judicial cooperation to rule on what arises from a conflict of legislative jurisdiction regarding copyright.

Reproduction misconceived: why there is no right to reproduce and the implications for ART access

Reproduction is broadly recognised as fundamental to human flourishing. The presumptive priority of reproductive freedom forms the predominant position in the literature, translating in the non-sexual reproductive realm as an...

A Detailed Case Study of Human Rights Violation in Chennai Region with Reference of Union Carbide Corporation Vs Union of India

Human rights include the expression of the need for people to be treated in a fair, decent and humane manner regardless of their ethnic, religious or racial profile. Violation of human rights involves denying human beings their basic moral rights. These violations have been part of human history, and only in the last century has a general consensus emerged that they are absolutely wrong. Perpetrators of human rights abuses range from governments, corporations and organized crime rings to communities and individuals. There are many underlying causes that lead people to violate human rights. There is a temptation to view human rights violations in a one-dimensional construct involving a very simplistic spectrum of evil versus good. The first part of this article examines the view that "human rights violators are not necessarily just evil, but may also be themselves forced into ways of behaving by external circumstances". Violations of human rights are a result of the innate evil nature of the perpetrators, who argue that there are other environmental and biological factors that drive people to commit such crimes. The second part of the paper examines the extent to which fear of the "other" drives the desire to commit war crimes against a perceived rival group. The study is based on a systematic content analysis of official documents, press releases, newspapers, articles and interviews. I quantitatively collected all available information and also identified the most frequently recurring terminology and key words, which were graphically represented whenever possible. It also consists of articles and sections as well as various steps taken as a whole or generally or individually with developments and human rights issues from time to time that help in the violation and protection of people around the world. You will find here a discussion of the issue of Kashmir, humanitarian crises during and after the conflict in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas in 2008-2009, the UN's view of human rights violations, the crises caused by the 2006 Lebanon war, the humanitarian disaster in the Darfur province of Sudan (2003- 2010); and finally the political, social and economic crisis in Zimbabwe (2001–2010). The case studies analyzed in this research report reveal a number of similar trends as well as some notable differences. As such, they restrict civil liberties to prevent the emergence and mobilization of dissent in society. Moreover, human rights are at the heart of the European integration process (which was built on the ashes of civil war and genocide) and its long-term aspirations. The fundamental recognition of human rights is therefore always reflected in the EU's foreign policy and external relations.

Economic costs of poor PSC manifest in sickness absence and voluntary turnover

Abstract Work-related stress is a major occupational health and safety (OHS) issue that has industrial relations origins. Aside from the moral and human rights imperatives to improve the corporate climate for worker psychological health (as per psychosocial safety climate, PSC), there are strong economic costs for not doing so. PSC refers to worker perceptions of the corporate safety system to protect and promote workers’ psychological health and wellbeing. It is a leading indicator of working conditions, which in turn affect workers’ health and work engagement. In this study, we estimate the attributable economic cost of low PSC due to sickness absence and turnover. Data were collected from a multinational company using survey at Time 1 (T1) and objective company data (i.e., sickness absence and turnover) after one year (T2). Using regression analysis and a matched sample of 617 responses, PSC was negatively related to future sickness absence. A binomial logistic regression with 1268 respondents (i.e., all responses at T1) showed that PSC was negatively related to future voluntary turnover. An economic analysis suggests that improving OHS via PSC could save an organisation with 5000 employees USD 0.6–2.7 million per year. Building PSC to protect and promote workers’ psychological health is a likely economic saving on organisational productivity.

Towards a Conversational Ethics of Large Language Models

Abstract Large Language Models are one of the most prominent examples of current uses of AI, and one of the most urgently pursued normative tasks is to make them and their interactive user-interfaces—open-domain chatbots—safe. However, in this paper, we elaborate first on why such a limited view on the permissibility and desirability of their utterances falls conceptually flat, is philosophically insufficient, and leads to severe technological limits. We then propose a positive normative concept, appropriateness, that can provide the required orientation for determining what chatbots may or may not say, and distinguish between technical-discursive, social, and moral appropriateness. Lastly, we explore the requirements for social and conversational contexts to fulfill appropriateness-requirements, and find that positionality is a key element for their position in discourse.

Confiscation of Copyrights in Investigations of Criminal Actions in the Field of Taxation and Tax Collection

This article discusses the confiscation of copyright as a form of intellectual property in the investigation of criminal acts in the field of taxation and tax collection. Copyright legal provisions recognize the moral right of creators to defend their rights from things that are detrimental to their personal honor or reputation through certain legal measures, while tax law regulates the authority to carry out confiscation in the event of criminal acts in the field of taxation or unpaid tax debts. This can cause conflicts between legal provisions in their implementation and raise questions about how to confiscate copyright as an intangible movable object. To answer this question, the author carried out a juridical analysis of the provisions of Copyright law and confiscation, prepared arguments for the relevance of Copyright confiscation, and drew conclusions inductively based on the results of the analysis. With the conclusion that there is a legal basis for confiscation related to investigations, but regarding tax collection it does not have sufficient legal basis and requires further regulation of confiscation authority. The exercise of confiscation authority that is not against the law will not conflict with the Creator's legal efforts to defend his rights.

Modesty, toleration, and persuasion

Lucia Rafanelli's analysis of reform intervention is both timely and philosophically powerful. This paper asks two questions about the limits, and proper implications, of her methodology – both of which have to do with the notion of modesty, understood as a moral virtue. The first asks whether or not principled illiberal regimes have a moral right, on her account, to reform intervention against the liberalism of liberal democratic states. The second asks about the extent to which persuasive and discursive modes of reform intervention are rightly understood as respectful, when such intervention begins with an unshakeable moral commitment held by the intervenor and used as justification for the intervention itself.