Moral rights

Moral rights protect the personal connection between creators and their copyrighted works. They are more common in civil law countries, though some common law systems also recognize them to a degree. These rights include the ability to claim authorship, to publish anonymously or under a pseudonym, and to preserve the work’s integrity. The integrity right lets an author object to changes, distortions, or mutilations that harm their honor or reputation. Even after an artist transfers their economic copyright to someone else, they still hold these moral rights.

These rights first appeared in France and Germany and were added to the Berne Convention in 1928. Canada includes moral rights in its Copyright Act. The United States joined the Berne Convention in 1989 but, because the treaty is not self-executing, the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 exempted the U.S. from the moral rights section. The U.S. later passed the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), which grants moral rights only to a narrow set of visual art—paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and photographs that exist in a single copy or a limited edition of 200 signed and numbered copies or fewer. Photographs qualify only if taken for exhibition purposes. VARA protects works of “recognized stature” and excludes posters, maps, globes, motion pictures, electronic publications, and applied art. Under VARA, artists have two rights: attribution and integrity. Attribution lets them claim their work, prevent false attribution, and stay anonymous or pseudonymous. Integrity prevents distortion or modification that could harm their reputation through misrepresentation. In the U.S., moral rights cannot be transferred and last only for the author’s life, though authors can waive them in writing.

Some jurisdictions, like Austria, distinguish between narrow moral rights (focused on integrity) and wider ones (limiting uses that could harm the author’s integrity). Certain copyright timestamp services let authors publish allowed and disallowed uses to prevent violations of wider moral rights.

The Berne Convention’s Rome Revision in 1928 recognized two moral rights—paternity and integrity—in Article 6bis. It states that, independent of economic rights and even after their transfer, an author can claim authorship and object to any distortion, modification, or derogatory action that would harm their honor or reputation.

In most of Europe, authors cannot assign or broadly waive moral rights. European copyright is often seen as property that cannot be sold, only licensed. Authors can agree to limited waivers, which are common in contracts, and may need to “assert” these rights before enforcing them—often done on a book’s copyright page.

Canada’s Copyright Act, Section 14.1, protects moral rights. They cannot be assigned but can be waived contractually, and many Canadian publishing contracts now include a standard waiver. A famous case, Snow v. The Eaton Centre Ltd., involved artist Michael Snow, who stopped the mall from tying bows on his sculpture of Canada Geese at Christmas.

China’s Copyright Law (1990, Article 20) grants unlimited protection for rights of authorship, alteration, and integrity. Article 55 provides retroactive protection for unexpired terms, so these perpetual moral rights apply to older works as well. The 2001 version kept these provisions.

Ghana’s Copyright Act of 2005, Article 18, also provides perpetual moral rights. Article 6 grants rights to proper attribution and to oppose any distortion, mutilation, or modification that harms the author’s reputation or discredits the work.

Hong Kong’s moral rights are specified under its Copyright Ordinance.