# "The moral right of the author has been asserted" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 1, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889 "2006-07-01T21:02:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889/1 "2006-07-01T21:02:06Z")
What does this mean? It’s in a book in the publishing information bit. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but the book is written in character as, and attributed to on the cover, a character from a series of books (the writer of those books being the real author). ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889/2 "2006-07-01T21:08:59Z")
You’re not reading a Kilgour Trout novel, by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889/3 "2006-07-01T22:13:59Z")
Under the Berne Convention, based on previously standing European law, artists have a moral right to the protection of their work. > **[Legal Issues - Moral Rights for Authors and Artists](https://www.infotoday.com/it/jan02/ardito.htm)** > [@](#): > > “Moral rights” is the English translation of the French phrase droit moral. Moral rights differ from copyright. Copyright protects property rights, which entitles authors to publish and economically benefit from their published works. Moral rights safeguard personal and reputational rights, which permit authors to defend both the integrity of their works and the use of their names. In countries that legally recognize moral rights, authors have redress to protect any distortion, misrepresentation, or interference of their works that could negatively affect their honor. Moral rights are often described as “inalienable.” French law recognizes perpetual moral rights. In Germany, moral rights end when the author’s copyright expires (70 years after he or she dies), while in other countries, moral rights terminate with the author’s death. … > > (1) Independently 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, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation. > > (2) The rights granted to the author in accordance with the preceding paragraph shall, after his death, be maintained, at least until the expiry of the economic rights, and shall be exercisable by the persons or institutions authorized by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed. However, those countries whose legislation, at the moment of their ratification of or accession to this Act, does not provide for the protection after the death of the author of all the rights set out in the preceding paragraph may provide that some of these rights may, after his death, cease to be maintained. > > (3) The means of redress for safeguarding the rights granted by this Article shall be governed by the legislation of the country where protection is claimed ([http://www.wipo.org/treaties/ip/berne/berne01.html](http://www.wipo.org/treaties/ip/berne/berne01.html)). The U.S. specifically omitted the moral rights clause when it signed the Berne Convention, so there is no equivalent in U.S. print copyright law. Visual media have more protection, as that page explains. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889/4 "2006-07-01T23:11:41Z")
There was an example of moral rights being asserted in an artwork in Toronto several years ago. At the Eaton Centre, there’s a large number of small statues of Canada Geese suspended from the ceiling of one of the larger atriums, flying in formation. One Christmas, the interior decorators for the Eaton Centre decided to put long red ribbons dangling from the geese’s necks. Thought it struck the right combination of festive and subliminal gift-buying encouragement, or something. The artist who had made the geese sued successfully to have the ribbons taken off, because in the artist’s view, they cheapened the artistic integrity of his art. The court agreed and the Centre had to take the ribbons off. Note that the Centre owned the geese, so it wasn’t a property right that was in issue - it was the artist’s moral right not to have his artistic integreity compromised. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889/5 "2006-07-01T23:22:13Z")
I’m not familiar with this concept in the publishing world, but was taught its equivalent in art school. The sculptor David Smith had already died in a car crash when someone altered one of his pieces. It had originally been made of stainless steel with a jewelled (scoured with a wire brush into a decorative) pattern. The owner chose to hose the piece down with tractor-red paint. Now, if you’re Andy Rooney and think modern art is all just shit anyway, so what? Then let me put a scenario for those of you who. like Rooney, require on a 500-years of received opinion to acknowlege what’s good art: lets say you made bajillions of dollars on a new snack food that projected a hip-hop video when you bite into it, and you can afford to buy the _Mona Lisa_. Well, you know you’re really really smart - just look at your bank account, and you decide it would be a good idea to re-paint Mona’s mouth to show some teeth. Should you be legally entitled to do so? _If_ the work was specifically comissioned by you: then yes. This lets Nelson Rockefeller off the hook for painting over Diego Rivera’s mural. But if an artist fufilled a commission to paint, say, the president of Holographic Snack Foods Ltd. in an allegorical portait steering a ship through stormy seas, and this president was replaced by a backstabbing underling, could underling have his head painted over the original’s? the answer is no. And if the art was made at the behest of the artist own muse: NO! At some level, art is purely the product of the human soul, and as such it belongs to the collective human soul of all mankind. That sounds like twee bullshit, but try menacing a David Smith with a spraygun full of red paint. It could be conveyed to you by a New York State Trooper. Before this law went into effect, there were stories of artists having friends distract the guards & docents of museums so that they could et ats their works in museum and alter those elements that had been keeping them awake nights. Tricky, but still easier for painters than those who work in bronze. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moral-right-of-the-author-has-been-asserted/362889/6 "2006-07-03T02:07:32Z")
I’m remembering that scene in _Frida_ where Rockefeller ordered Diego Rivera’s mural destroyed for its political content, because he owned the wall it was on—and I guess Rivera had no “moral rights” to his work.