States that sign on to the Berne Convention agree (in Article 6bis) to guarantee the right to claim authorship to a literary work and to provide means of redress in the state's legislation to safeguard that right.
Canada legislated section 14.1 of the Copyright Act, which guarantees "moral rights," apart from strict copyright, which include the author's right to remain anonymous. If any person violates that right, section 34(2) of the Copyright Act entitles the author to "all remedies by way of injunction, damages, accounts, delivery up and otherwise that are or may be conferred by law for the infringement of a right."
Parliament really digs anonymity. Isn't that the best? What's more, nothing in the Berne Convention requires us to protect of anonymity, only the author's right to claim authorship. Your right not to be identified as the writer of words, if you are Canadian and dealing with Canadians in Canada, is 100% home-grown Canadian FREEDOM that nobody can take away, until your words appear to be a civil wrong or a crime.
Even the anonymous have to take care not to jeopardize their right to anonymity. If they abuse the right by doing lawsuit-worthy harm unto another, a judge may grant an Anton Piller order. If the police can provide strong evidence on oath that an anonymous person has committed a crime, a judge will authorize an end to this anonymity. And if either of those judges was wrong, those robbed of anonymity can just go back to sections 14.1 and 34(2) of the Copyright Act!
What's wrong with that? Don't we Canadians strike a decent balance here?
oolor