COPYRITGHT The Moral Right The copyright law protects the author’s exclusive rights, under the 1976 Act, and is premised on this economic principle: “that the consumer benefits by the incentives given to authors to produce copyrighted works. By contrast, countries that are signatories of the Berne Convention recognize and protect the moral rights of authors. The copyright laws of these countries treat an author’s work as more than an economic interest. An author’s work is treated as an inalienable, natural right, an extension of the artist’s personality. Moral right is a composite of three generally overlapping component of rights. The right of integrity: The right that the work not be mutilated or distorted. The right of paternity (Name Attribution): The right to be acknowledged as an author of the work; and The right of disclosure: The right to decide what and in what form the work will be presented.

COPYRITGHT The Moral Right Although the United States became a party to the Berne Convention on March 1, 1989, Congress did adopt specific legislation that would comply with Article 6 of the Berne Convention, which protects moral rights. Article 6 provides: Independently of the author’s economic rights and even after transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortions, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.

COPYRITGHT The Moral Right Although U.S. copyright law had not, before 1990, adopted moral rights, the moral rights concept has been incrementally integrated into our laws. An author’s integrity and attribution rights have been protected on a piecemeal basis. Gillian v. American Broadcasting Cos., the court found that the cutting of ABC of 24-minutes from a taped show created by Monty Python violated the terms of the license and constituted an infringement of the plaintiff’s adaptation right by creating an unauthorized derivative work. The court also ruled that ABC violated the Lanham Act “because the abridged version constituted a false designation of origin by deforming the work and presenting the plaintiff as an author of a work not his own, subjecting him to criticism for a work he did not do.

COPYRITGHT The Moral Right However, in 1990, Congress passed The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), which confers the right of attribution and integrity to certain works of visual art. Protection is given to: Works that exists in a single copy “such as original paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, or works existing in signed and numbered editions of more than 200 copies.” Leaffer.

D. COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT & REMEDIES COPYRITGHT D. COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT & REMEDIES Copyright infringement occurs when a person violates one or more of the copyright’s owner’s exclusive rights Through the exclusive rights, the copyright owner may exclude others for certain uses of her work. The exclusive rights include: The rights of reproduction; The rights of adaptation; The rights of distribution; The rights of performance; The rights of display;and The digital sound recording transmission right. The owner of the copyright may subdivide infinitely each of her exclusive rights. The owner of a copyright to a novel may, for example grant, all to different persons: An exclusive license for the reproduction of the novel; An exclusive license for its distribution; and An exclusive license for its performance.

D. COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT & REMEDIES COPYRITGHT D. COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT & REMEDIES To succeed in an infringement action the owner of the copyright must establish: He is the owner of a valid copyright in the work at issue, The owner must prove originality, copyrightable subject matter, compliance with copyright formalities, and citizenship The defendant has copied the work, and To establish this element, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant has taken an improper amount of the work. The defendant did not independently create the work. Usually shown by circumstantial evidence that; Defendant had access; and The work is substantially similar Copying by he defendant constitutes an improper appropriation of the work.