"Are moral rights human rights?"

For a British moral rights
cause célèbre, click here

"Are moral rights human rights?" was the title of last week's joint meeting between the British Literary and Artistic Copyright Association (BLACA) and the IPKat weblog, which was kindly hosted in the London office of law firm Bird & Bird.  Sir Colin Birss was in the chair.  The PowerPoints of the two speakers are now available from the BLACA website, here.   The two presentations were made by Cyberleagle Graham Smith (an IP/IT partner, Bird & Bird) and the IPKat's Eleonora Rosati, who is also a major contributor to the 1709 Blog.

Although the title sounds quite narrow, the content of the event inevitably spilled over quite a bit from moral rights into the adjacent copyright field of economic rights, so the presentations are of wider interest than you might immediately imagine.

For a British human rightscause célèbre, click here

Apart from two thoroughly lively and entertaining presentations and the cut-and-thrust of the questions and answers which followed them, there was also the promise of more to come in terms of establishing the balance between the two doctrines.  In front of a roomful of credible witnesses, Sir Colin said -- in all apparent sincerity and with a perfectly straight face -- how very much he was looking forward to trying a copyright action in which a human rights defence was raised.  This blogger hopes that it will not be long before this wish is fulfilled.