Moral Rights

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 gives artists legal rights against derogatory treatment of their work. They are known as 'Moral Rights', but that is a misnomer. The rights are not simply a moral code which should be followed as best practice by all right-thinking people. They are legal rights which can be enforced and whose breach can be punished by the courts. Three moral rights are provided by the Act. They are: 1 the right to be identified as author 2 the right to object to derogatory treatment 3 the right to prevent false attribution of authorship Artlaw: Moral Rights, Henry Lydiate, Art Monthly, September 1994