Re: Copyright of laws

Moral rights are a part of copyright and instead of protecting the reproduction from and compensation for the reproduction of a creation, moral rights protect the honour and reputation of the creator and therefore any changes to a work that may be "prejudicial to the honour or reputation of the creator." It also ensures that authors can claim authorship with their work. These rights of integrity and paternity are the two basic rights found in the leading convention on copyright, the Berne Convention. The U.K. statute as well as other copyright laws have at least these moral rights. The u.S. on the other hand has minimum moralrights in their copyright statute (primarily for fine artists) and claims that other laws for passing off, defamation, etc. protect the moral rights of the author. This is a somewhat controversial position.

Let me know if you have further questions on this issue. Also, if you have any interesting quotes on moral rights, please pass them along as I write on various copyright issues and alwys like to include interesting quotes.

Lesley Harris (Author of "Canadian Copyright Law" published by McGraw-Hill in 1992.)
<harris[_at_]nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu>

On Tue, 22 Nov 1994, Charles E. Keller wrote:
>
> The first time i saw the words `moral right' printed in a verso
> i thot it was either a "joke" or marketing hype... i gather that
> it is something serious? (excuse my ignorance of the law--but since
> UK law is copyright protected i guess i can be excused?) <Grin>
>
> For example:
> `_Rumpole a la Carte_ by John Mortimer
> (C) Avanpress Ltd. 1990
> The moral right of the author has been asserted'
>
> Perhaps someone would enlighten us as to what this legal "right"
> is, how it might be violated, and its intended purpose. I assume
> this is not a form of intellectual property created by Jerry Falwell
> et. al. since it appears to be UK law. ;-)
>
> Any thoughts as to why the US objects to "moral rights" might be
> interesting as well.
>
> Charles Keller (non-lawyer)
> <keller[_at_]Ra.MsState.Edu>
>
>
> >From cni-copyright[_at_]cni.org Mon Nov 21 14:34:33 1994
> >From: Paul Robinson <PAUL[_at_]tdr.com>
> >
> >either. For example, the U.S. *specifically* objected to the "Moral
> >Rights" provisions of the treaty in its accession to the treaty, with
> >Teddy Kennedy sneaking adherence to the Moral Rights clause into some
> >other unrelated bill that was signed by President Bush.
Received on Wed Nov 23 1994 - 06:06:29 GMT