What Are Moral Rights In Copyright Law?

• Published date: 07 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Copyright
• Law Firm: Gowling WLG
• Author: Mr John Coldham and Olivia Nimmo

We have previously covered the basics of copyright law among other articles in this copyright series. But did you know that another set of rights exists in copyright works is the concept of moral rights?

Moral rights vs copyright

Copyright is an economic right, allowing or preventing access or exploitation of the relevant work for profit. On the other hand, moral rights are non-economic rights that protect individual authors' and creators' personal interests. Particularly, these rights protect their reputations. They apply only to copyright works rather than any form of design right for example.

Moral rights specifically apply to literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works and films. This includes books, professional reports and articles, an architect's drawings, photographs, illustrations, adverts etc.

It is important that businesses consider moral rights when using or acquiring copyright protected works. This is because the person entitled to exercise moral rights will often be different to the copyright owner. Additionally, moral rights cannot be assigned.

An assignment of copyright does not necessarily give a business 'free rein' to use the copyright material. Businesses must act with care to address and reduce the risk of infringement of authors' moral rights. We explore the different types of moral rights and options for addressing them in commercial transactions in more detail below.

What do moral rights protect?

Authors' moral rights

There are four types of authors' moral rights in the UK:

1. The right of paternity (i.e. the right to be identified as author or director)

An author/director's right to be identified as such applies to the whole or any substantial part of a copyright literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work and lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.

The right of paternity generally arises where the relevant work has been exploited in some form:

• Literary and dramatic works - where the work (or an adaptation of it) is commercially published, publicly performed, publicly communicated, included in films and/or sound recordings which are made public;
• Musical works - where the work (or an adaptation of it) is commercially published or copies of sound recordings are issued to the public (including as part of film soundtracks), however there is no right to be identified as the author where the musical work is publicly performed or communicated;
• Artistic works - where the work is commercially published, publicly exhibited or...