Moral rights


Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions.
Moral rights apply only to literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, and also to films. The most important exceptions to be aware of are computer programs and employees. In most situations employees do not enjoy moral rights.
The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. The preserving of the integrity of the work allows the author to object to alteration, distortion, or mutilation of the work that is "prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation". Anything else that may detract from the artist's relationship with the work even after it leaves the artist's possession or ownership may bring these moral rights into play. Moral rights are distinct from any economic rights tied to copyrights. Even if an artist has assigned his or her copyright rights to a work to a third party, he or she still maintains the moral rights to the work.
Moral rights were first recognized in France and Germany, before they were included in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1928. Canada recognizes moral rights in its Copyright Act. The United States became a signatory to the convention in 1989, and incorporated a version of moral rights under its copyright law under Title 17 of the U.S. Code.
Some jurisdictions allow for the waiver of moral rights. In the United States, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 recognizes moral rights, but applies only to a narrow subset of works of visual art. "For the purposes of VARA, visual art includes paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and photographs, existing in a single copy or a limited edition of 200 signed and numbered copies or fewer". A photograph must be taken only for exhibition purposes to be recognized under this subcategory. Independent art is not a focus of this waiver, for VARA only works in protecting artwork that can be considered as having "recognized stature;" Some of the items that are voided from VARA's protection include posters, maps, globes, motion pictures, electronic publications, and applied art. The VARA grants artists two specific rights. The first is the right of attribution. This allows an author to avoid the misattribution of their work, and allows their ownership to remain anonymous. The second is the right of integrity does its best to prevent distortion or modification of their work. This right can ease an artist in their worries surrounding negative defamation directly applied to their work affection their reputation.
The artist's work cannot be transferable after death, the end only with the life of the author. They can, however, waive their moral rights if done so in writing.
Some jurisdictions like Austria differentiate between narrow and wide moral rights. Whilst the former is about integrity of the work, the latter limits usages, which may harm the author's integrity. Some copyright timestamp services allow an author to publish allowed and disallowed usage intentions to prevent a violation of such wider moral rights.

Berne Convention

Through the Rome Revision of the Berne Convention in 1928, the Berne Convention accepted two forms of moral rights; paternity and integrity. These rights are included in Article 6bis of the Berne Convention as follows:

Independent of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation.

Worldwide situation

Table

Legend:
Countries and areasTerms of moral rightsReferences
Albania∞ forever
= economic rights 		Arts. 4, 17-21,
Algeria∞ inalienable, cannot be waivedArt. 21,
Andorra= economic rightsArts. 6, 18
Angola∞ inalienableArt. 18,
Antigua and Barbuda= economic rightss. 18,
Armenia∞ unlimitedArt. 12,
AustriaLife + 70 years§§19-21
Australia = economic rightss. 195AM,
Azerbaijan∞ unlimitedArts. 14, 27,
Barbados= economic rights
Life + 20 calendar years 		s. 18, 18,
Belarus∞ unlimitedArt. 15,
Belgium∞ inalienableArts. 1, 7,
Canada= economic rights, may be waivedArts. 14.1, 14.2,
China∞ perpetual and retroactiveArts. 10, 20,
Denmark= Life of author + 70 calendar years Section 63, 75,
[|Ghana]∞ perpetualArts. 6, 18,
Egypt∞ permanent, imprescriptible, and nonassignableArt. 143,
France∞ perpetual, inalienable, and imprescriptibleArt. L121-1,
[|Hong Kong]= economic, cannot be waived, must be asserteds. 89-114,
Italy∞ perpetual and inalienableArts. 22-23,
Macao∞ perpetual, inalienable, and imprescriptibleArts. 7, 41,
Macedonia∞ unlimitedArts. 61, 75,
Moldova∞ inalienable, assumed by heirsArt. 9,
the Netherlands= economic rightsArt. 25,
Oman∞ perpetual, inalienable, and nonassignableArt. 5
South Africa= economic, can be waived, non-assignableArt. 20
United Kingdom= economic, can be waived, must be assertedArts. 77-89,

In Europe

In most of Europe, it is not possible for authors to assign or even waive their moral rights. This is following a tradition in European copyright itself, which is regarded as an item of property which cannot be sold, but only licensed. The author can agree to waive them to a limited extent. There may also be a requirement for the author to 'assert' these moral rights before they can be enforced. In many books, for example, this is done on a page near the beginning, in and amongst the British Library/Library of Congress data.

In Canada

Section 14.1 of Canada's Copyright Act protects the moral rights of authors. The moral rights cannot be assigned, but can be waived contractually. Many publishing contracts in Canada now contain a standard moral right waiver.
Moral rights in Canada were famously exercised in the case of Snow v. The Eaton Centre Ltd. In this case Toronto Eaton Centre, a large shopping mall, had commissioned the artist Michael Snow for a sculpture of Canada Geese. Snow successfully stopped Eaton's from decorating the geese with bows at Christmas.

In China

Article 20 of the provides unlimited term of protection of the rights of authorship, alteration, and integrity of an author. As Article 55 of the same Law provides retroactive protection of unexpired term on the date of entry into force of this Law, the Chinese perpetual moral rights are retroactive as well. The version retains this provision and the original Article 55 becomes Article 59.

In Ghana

Art. 18, provides perpetual moral rights. The moral rights in Art. 6 are for proper attribution and against any distortion, mutilation or other modification of the work where that act would be or is prejudicial to the reputation of the author or where the work is discredited by the act.

In Hong Kong

Moral Rights is specified under Copyright Ordinance Division IV, starting from section 89. Author of computer program does not have Moral Rights. Moral Rights cannot be transferred unless on the death of moral rights holder.

In India

Moral rights are recognised under section 57 of India copyright act. Section 57 of India Copyright act refers to Author's Special rights. It states:
The issue of moral rights was discussed in Amar Nath Sehgal V Union of India & Ors.. The case pertained to a mural that was commissioned in 1957 by Government of India during construction of Vigyan Bhavan at New Delhi. The mural in question was made of bronze had span of 140 feet sweep of 40 feet. The mural remained on display and was much appreciated till pulled down in 1979 and then consigned to storerooms of Union of India. Delhi High Court specifically referred to Berne Convention in delivering judgement. Court also awarded damages Rs. 500000 and also decreed in favor of the Amar Nath Sehgal that he would have an absolute right to recreate the mural at any place and right to sale the same.
The Court accepted existence of moral rights despite the work being commissioned work and copyright had passed over to union of India and suit being brought 13years after the said act.

In Macao

Article 41 of the provides inalienable, unrenounceable and imprescriptible author's personal rights.

In Taiwan

In Taiwan, the Copyright Act has provided authors' perpetual moral rights with regard of attribution and protection against alteration in bad faith, even if the works are in the public domain, as follows:
Moral rights have had a less robust tradition in the United States. Copyright law in the United States emphasizes protection of financial reward over protection of creative attribution. The exclusive rights tradition in the United States is inconsistent with the notion of moral rights as it was constituted in the Civil Code tradition stemming from post-Revolutionary France. When the United States acceded to the Berne Convention, it stipulated that the Convention's "moral rights" provisions were addressed sufficiently by other statutes, such as laws covering slander and libel.
Some individual states have moral rights laws, particularly pertaining to visual art and artists. However, it is unclear if these laws, or portions thereof, are preempted by federal laws, such as the Visual Artists Rights Act.
In Gilliam v. American Broadcasting, the Monty Python comedy troupe made a claim of "mutilation" in 1975 in legal proceedings against American TV network ABC for airing re-edited versions of Monty Python's Flying Circus. However, the case was primarily decided on the basis of whether the BBC was licensed in such a way as to allow ABC to edit the videos.

Visual Artists Rights Act

grants authors of a "work of visual art" - e.g. photographs, paintings, sculptures, etc. - the non-transferable right to
These rights are distinct from any rights of copyright and ownership of a copy of the work.

Adaptation right

Copyright holders have the right to control adaptations, or the preparation of "derivative works". This right is given under copyright law. See 17 U.S.C. § 106.

Lanham Act

Section 43 of the Lanham Act governs false and misleading advertising, and can apply in some instances to attribution of protected works. However, it cannot be used to create moral rights for works outside of the Act. See Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox.

Courtesy of non-attribution

Authors occasionally wish to distance themselves from work they've been involved with, some to the point of not wishing to be recognized as the work's author. One way they may do this is by signing the work under a pseudonym. Alan Smithee was a traditional, collective pseudonym used between 1968 and 1999 by discontented Hollywood film directors who no longer wanted to be credited. This courtesy was not always extended, however. The director of , Russell Mulcahy, wanted his name removed after the completion bond company took over film production, but he was contractually obliged not to impugn the film and he was told that using a pseudonym would impugn it.
If the work was unfinished, sometimes the original author will choose a pseudonym as permission for the copyright holder to do whatever they wish to finish and market the unwanted work, cutting ties from the product.