Moral rights

General
Countries that follow the civil law tradition regard authors’ rights as natural human rights, or part of one’s right of personality and reputation. As a part of this tradition, in addition to the protection of the author’s economic rights, the protection of the author’s moral rights is an essential part of the system. The author of a work has the right to be identified whenever the work is:


 * published commercially;
 * performed in, communicated to or, issued to the public.

The author also has the right to object to derogatory treatment of his/her work (any addition to, deletion from or alteration to or adaptation of the work) which amounts to its distortion or mutilation, or is otherwise prejudicial to the honor or reputation of the author. Also under moral rights is a person's right not to have a work falsely attributed to him/her as author.

Moral rights, as reflected in Article 6bis of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, provide:


 * Independently of the author’s economic rights, and even after the transfer of said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation, or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation. include the right of an author to be named as the author of a work and the right to object to uses of the work which could bring dishonor or discredit on the author’s reputation.

Often, in civil law systems, moral rights reflect a part of the author’s personality and reputation and are non-transferable, and may be not waivable. Economic rights, in some instances, may be subordinated to moral rights.

United States
The controversy over moral rights was one of the reasons that kept the United States out of the Berne Convention for over a century. However, during that time the U.S. legal regime evolved and when the United States finally joined the Berne Convention, Congress determined that no changes to U.S. law were necessary to comply with the moral rights provisions of Article 6bis.

Congress found that the existing panoply of remedies available under U.S. common law, state trademark and unfair competition, moral rights and defamation law. and federal laws (including the federal Trademark Act (“the Lanham Act”) provided sufficient moral rights protection. These findings were explicitly stated in the Berne Convention Implementing Act. When Congress was convinced that enhanced protection for moral rights was necessary, legislation was passed.