CONTEXTS

Applied TheoryMcKee and Porterof the work. U.S. law focuses mainly on the rightsof the copyright holder, who may or may not be theoriginal author/creator of the copyrighted work. Suhl(2002) pointed out that the differences in an author’smoral rights are due to differing cultural views aboutthe purpose of creative works and their relationship tosociety at large:The level and type of protectionafforded to creative works by U.S. lawis a reflection of its market-dominatedpolitical economy. In Continental legalsystems, intellectual and creative worksare manifestations of the culture. …Copyright law in the U.S. is a reflectionof a utilitarian tradition. In contrast,Continental copyright law is a derivativeof natural rights and German idealism.(pp. 1213–1214)One implication of this difference for Internetresearchers is that authors of works published in theEuropean Union have more rights, more control, andmore say regarding reproduction and redistributionthan authors have under U.S. laws and customs. Thisdifference in intellectual property law may extend to(as well as from) cultural differences, perceptions, andcustoms regarding the rights of the creator/author. (Seealso Ess, 2009, 74–75.)However, as the EU seeks to standardize lawsacross member nations, corporate rather than individualauthorship is becoming more typical, particularly inthe context of work for hire, the venue in which mosttechnical communicators work. But even within the EUthere are differences of degree—for example, betweenUK and continental traditions—regarding the author’smoral rights. France, for instance, has the legal “right ofintegrity,” in which the author has the rightto combat an adaptation that does nottruthfully represent the work [or] whena public display of a work is detrimentalto the work’s overall conceptual view.The author in France, and in many otherContinental regimes, maintains a personalconnection with his or her creation thatextends beyond the author’s reputationinterests; essentially, the author is allowedto intervene whenever he or she feels thata modification to a given work may affectthe public’s judgment of the author. (Suhl,2002, pp. 1222–1223)Transfer of copyright practices also highlightdifferences. In the United States, copyright transfer isa fairly common practice. In fact, the work-for-hireprovision in U.S. copyright law makes transfer to anemployer the default position for authorship: “Theemployer or other person for whom the work wasprepared is considered the author” (U.S. CopyrightOffice, 2008, section 201b). Notice that the employeris not just regarded as the copyright holder but actuallybecomes the author. In general, EU member states holdto a very different view of authorship, but there are alsodifferences among countries. In the United Kingdomand the Netherlands, transfer of copyright more closelyresembles U.S. law; however,in most continental EU MemberStates, the creator of a piece ofwork is considered to be the authorand copyright-holder. In most cases,that original right-holder will be anindividual. Some countries (like Finlandor Germany) don’t accept legal entitieslike universities or companies to be suchoriginal copyright-holders at all. Somecountries (like France, Portugal, Spain,Italy and the Netherlands) allow them toobtain copyright as such only under quiterestrictive conditions. (Gnädig et al., 2003,p. 26)Differences also exist with regard to duration ofcopyrights. For instance, in some member states ofthe European Union, the author’s moral rights “areperpetual (e.g., France), while in others, moral rightsexpire at the same time as economic rights” (Gnädig etal., 2003, p. 42).Differences also exist between U.S. and Europeannotions of fair use. For example, Lewen’s (2008)research made clear that the strong copyrightprotections regarding digital filesharing under U.S.law do not export well to Sweden, which has a legalVolume 57, Number 3, August 2010 l Technical Communication 291