What are my moral rights?

What are my moral rights?

Moral rights

Alongside economic rights, the second group of rights a creator has in their work are known as “moral rights”.  Moral rights aim to protect the integrity of the work and the creator’s reputation. These rights are all set out in Part 4 of the Copyright Act 1994 and can be summarised as:
  1. The Right of Attribution: this is the right for creators to be identified and named as the author of their work. 
  1. The right against false attribution: this is the right to prevent others from being identified and named as the author of your work or being credited as the author of someone else's work.
  1. The right of integrity: this is the right to object to derogatory treatment of your work.
  1. The right to privacy in certain photographs and films: this is a right belonging to a person who commissions a photograph or film for private or domestic purposes (such as wedding photos or family videos) but doesn’t own copyright in the works. The person commissioning the work has a right of privacy which gives them control to have the work published or distributed publicly. 

Exercising moral rights

Moral rights arise automatically when a work is created. However, to enforce their moral rights, a creator must actively assert their right of attribution. This means that a creator needs to require a person to identify them as the author. For writers, this is often done by including a moral rights statement on the imprint page of a book. 
Moral rights cannot be transferred to another person, even if copyright in that same work is transferred or if copyright is owned by the creator’s employer. This is because moral rights are about the personal relationship the creator has with their work. 

Duration of moral rights

The rights of attribution, integrity and of privacy in certain photos and films, lasts for the duration of the copyright protection for the work. However, the right against false attribution only lasts for 20 years after the death of the creator. 
The above is a summary of the most important aspects of moral rights. For more information, check out the comprehensive Moral Rights fact sheet .