Difference Between Moral Rights and Copyright Law
Table of Contents
Introduction
Copyright legislation is part of the broader, comprehensive and wider body of law recognized as intellectual property (IP) which refers broadly to the creations of the human mind. IP rights protect and safeguard the interests of innovators and creators by giving them rights over their creations.
The prominence as well as the significance of protecting IP was first acknowledged in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883) (Paris Convention) and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) (Berne Convention). Both treaties are administered as well as controlled by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Copyright defends as well as it also protects two kinds of rights. Economic rights permit right owners to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others. Moral rights permit authors and creators to take certain definite actions to preserve and protect their link with their work. The author or creator may be the owner of the economic rights or those rights may be transferred as well as moved to one or more copyright owners. Many nations do not allow the transmission or the transfer of moral rights.
The Berne Convention, in Article 6bis, requires its members to award and grant authors the following rights:
(i) the right to claim authorship of a work (occasionally called the right of paternity or the right of attribution); and
(ii) the right to object to any distortion or modification of a work, or other derogatory action in relation to a work, which would be prejudicial to the author’s honor or reputation (sometimes known as the right of integrity).
These and other parallel similar rights granted in national laws are generally recognized as the moral rights of authors. The Berne Convention requires these rights to be independent of authors’ economic rights. Moral rights are only conferred to individual authors and in numerous national laws they continue to remain with the authors even after the authors have transferred their economic rights. This means that even where, for instance, a film producer or publisher owns the economic rights in a work, in many jurisdictions the distinct separate author continues to have moral rights.
The author shall have certain rights in his creation which include the right to prevent or stop any distortion of his work. Under the Copyright Act of 1957 (Act) both the economic rights and moral rights of the author are protected. These moral rights of the author are called Special Rights. Moral rights are the English translation of the French Phrase Droit moral. They are in addition to the economic rights, and they are inalienable. Moral rights safeguard personal and reputational rights, which permit authors to defend both the integrity of their works and the use of their names.
Moral Right
Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally or normally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a less significant extent, in some common law jurisdictions.
The moral rights comprises as 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 or protective 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”. Everything 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 separate 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 as well as preserves the moral rights to the work.
Berne Convention
Through the Rome Revision of the Berne Convention in 1928, the Berne Convention accepted two kinds of moral rights; paternity and integrity. These rights comprised 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.
This case of Amarnath Sehgal v. Union of India brought to the forefront the debate over the moral rights of authors and creators.
In the year 1957, the Government of India commissioned a definite and certain Mr. Sehgal to create a bronze mural for the Vigyan Bhavan, the most prominent International Convention Hall in Delhi. The bronze sculpture in question was about 140 ft. span and 40 ft. sweep and had taken five years to finish. On finishing point, it was placed on the wall of the Lobby in the Convention hall. This embellishment or the enhancement on a national architecture became a fragment or the part of the Indian art heritage.
Though, in 1979, the mural was pulled down and committed to the storeroom of the Union without notice or permission and consent or authorization of Mr. Sehgal. When Mr. Sehgal came to know of this ill treatment, he made representations to the government authorities for restoration of the mural, to no benefit.
Amarnath Sehgal filed a petition under Section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act before the Delhi High Court seeking for enforcement and execution of his moral rights. He sought after for an apology from the defendants, a permanent injunction on the defendants to restrain them from distorting, mutilating or damaging the plaintiff’s mural and damages or the compensations to the tune of INR50 Lacs. He was also granted the same.
The key or most important takeaway from this case is that notwithstanding the transfer or sale of a copyrighted work from the creator to another person, all the rights of the creator do not get extinguished or switch off. The creator still retains as well as also holds his/her moral rights that can be enforced as well as imposed when required.
Conclusion
Thus time and again, moral rights of an author have been held to be sacrosanct, untouchable and inviolable by the Courts, and the Moral rights do offer sufficient protection to an author to safeguard his work, even after he transfers it in any manner of any kind to commercially exploit it.
READ ALSO
Basic Concepts of Trademark / Intellectual property
Like and Follow us on :
