[1] Moral rights were first recognized in France and Germany,[4] before they were included in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1928.
[6] The United States became a signatory to the convention in 1989,[7] and incorporated a version of moral rights under its copyright law, codifed in Title 17 of the U.S. Code.
Independent art is not a focus of this waiver, for VARA only works in protecting artwork that can be considered as having "recognized stature"; Some of the items that are voided from VARA's protection include posters, maps, globes, motion pictures, electronic publications, and applied art.
The right of integrity does its best to prevent distortion or modification of their work, easing an artists' worries surrounding negative defamation directly applied to their work affecting their own personal, creative, or professional reputation through misrepresentation.
Moral rights in Canada were famously exercised in the case of Snow v. The Eaton Centre Ltd.[31] In this case Toronto Eaton Centre, a large shopping mall, had commissioned the artist Michael Snow for a sculpture of Canada Geese.
Article 20 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China (1990) provides unlimited term of protection of the rights of authorship, alteration, and integrity of an author.
It states: The issue of moral rights was discussed in Amar Nath Sehgal v Union of India & Ors (CS/OS/No.2074/1992 decided on 21 February 2005.
The case pertained to a mural that was commissioned in 1957 by the Government of India during construction of Vigyan Bhavan at New Delhi.
The mural remained on display and was much appreciated till pulled down in 1979 and then consigned to storerooms of Union of India.
The Court accepted the existence of moral rights despite the work being commissioned work and copyright had passed over to union of India and suit being brought 13 years after the said act (defense of limitations as pleaded by Government was rejected by the court).
[41] Some elements of moral rights do exist in the United States, but are usually protected through specific contract provisions between parties, or else through individual states' laws or the derivative work rights in U.S. copyright law.
[42] In Gilliam v. American Broadcasting, the Monty Python comedy troupe made a claim of "mutilation" (akin to a moral rights claim) in 1975 in legal proceedings against American TV network ABC for airing re-edited versions of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
[43] However, the case was primarily decided on the basis of whether the BBC was licensed in such a way as to allow ABC to edit the videos (paragraph 20).
Section 43 of the Lanham Act governs false and misleading advertising, and can apply in some instances to attribution of protected works.
[5]: 30 In Gilliam v. American Broadcasting the British comedy group Monty Python took action against the ABC network for broadcasting versions of their programs which had been correctly attributed to them but had been extensively edited, in part to remove content that their audience might consider offensive or obscene.
The judgement of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was in favor of Monty Python, finding the cuts might be an "actionable mutilation" that violated the Lanham Act.
Alan Smithee was a traditional, collective pseudonym used in Hollywood between 1968 and 1999 by discontented film directors who no longer wanted to be credited.