In response to Danny O'Brien:

I think deliberate misattribution is already taken care in other parts of the law. This is like putting my name on someone else's work, which is clearly fraud.

I agree that flowing money through to an author at the point of transaction does seem to make sense, but there is no distinction for this in the law.

An option would be a "value added" royalty scheme. Clearly copying music to my iPod does not add value and is difficult to monetize. Further distribution in a new form for financial gain is much easier. This is how I understand your argument.

On the other hand, just because no transaction takes place does not mean that value to the work is not being added. For example, a professor copying an article and distributing to a class adds value in terms of enhanced credibility to the work or the author. At the moment, this is not in the control of the author, but rather to whom rights are assigned in the hopes of adding value to a work (e.g. publishers).

What is fuzzy is that in the negotiation of contracts, most authors are quite happy to sign away whole swaths of rights in the hopes that a publisher might just flow back some royalty payments.

In this regard, the concept of added value as a protected moral right would be the only way to avoid the types of abuses that authors and creators often face when leaving it up to others to add value to their works.

At any rate, bravo for putting the discussion on the table. Lets hope the law designers are paying attention.

Echoing Simon Bradshaw on the discussion of attribution as a moral right, there are in fact other moral rights (that as far as I know, are still inalienable in Canada). These include altering a work in a way that would prejudice the author, or used in a way to associate the author with an organization as a form of endorsement without his permission.

I would think that moral rights in this sense are pretty important to maintain, and that would include naturally attribution.

The problem is that moral rights are difficult to enforce if attribution is given up, but an author could still be found guilty by association through misuse of his work.

Technology always changes and must improve generally if there is an evolution in the availability of materials and along with energy, how much is consumed. In other words perfection can be obtained as long as there is stability in the environment in which the technology functions (which rarely happens).

Toilets are a case in point. Going from 22 litres per flush to 1.2 litres with the same performance requires a serious rethink from a technological standpoint.

Mousetraps have achieved "perfection" mainly because mice evolve slowly and the materials to manufacture the trap have remained inexpensive.

I would also say that it is not the wristwatch but the clock face that is perfect, but this is not technology but design (oh dear).

Reminds me of other meaningless spin, e.g. the weatherman:

"Partly cloudy with a chance of showers"

or the financial analyst:

"the market will recover from these or lower levels"

This guy also does a great Amy Winehouse....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaW-uj0Ta14&feature=related

I wonder if the recent push for DMCA style copyright reform in Canada (about to be reintroduced by the Hon. Jim Prentice) is related to this.

They laughed at Truffaut and Godard when they were critics for Les Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s.

They laughed at Von Trier and his manifesto for Dogme95.

I wish these guys the best of luck as they have realized that giving up control over content and its distribution is where the future is at.

Oh my God...its A PORTABLE HOLE!!!

For those old enough to remember the Looney Tunes short, "The Hole Idea"... Calvin Q. Calculus invents the Portable Hole....

http://toolooney.goldenagecartoons.com/calvincalculusclip.gif