Moral rights of authors: credit, integrity and what to do if they are violated

They are the rights an author keeps over their work even after selling or assigning its economic exploitation: to be credited, to have the work not disfigured, not destroyed, and to be given access to it. Our Intellectual Property Registry guide explains how to register a work; this one explains what rights you have and what remedies exist when someone tramples them.

The natural person who generates a work: an original literary, musical, visual (plastic or graphic), dramatic or performing-arts, artistic, or any other kind of creation produced with intelligence and that is creative, expressed in a tangible medium currently known or invented in the future. The person appearing as such on the work by name, signature or identifying mark is presumed the author, absent proof to the contrary.

• Being the natural person who generated the work; the rights arise the moment the author fixes the original work in a tangible medium of expression.Verified against the official source
• That the work not be a “work made for hire,” which generates no moral rights absent a signed written agreement to the contrary.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: The rights exist from the moment you fix the work

   They do not depend on registering it. The law says they arise the moment the author fixes the original work in a tangible medium of expression, and repeats it in the publicity article: moral rights exist independently of registration, and registration is not a requirement to exercise and enforce moral rights.

2. 2

   Step 2: The four rights, and the one almost nobody knows

   Attribution, retraction, integrity and access. The integrity right goes further than people assume: beyond preventing mutilation, deformation or alteration that harms your legitimate interests or reputation, and preventing a work so altered from being publicly presented or distributed, it includes preventing the culpable or negligent destruction of an original or unique copy of the work. And the access right lets you demand reasonable access to the original work or unique copy when it is in another’s possession, in order to exercise any of your author’s rights; it does not entail moving the work, and access shall be in the manner least inconvenient to the possessor, who is indemnified where applicable for the expenses incurred.

3. 3

   Step 3: How long they last

   Moral rights last the author’s life and seventy (70) years after death, or until the work enters the public domain, whichever comes first. Upon the author’s death, exercise belongs to the person the author expressly designated in writing; failing that, to the heirs.

4. 4

   Step 4: What you can waive and what you cannot

   In general, moral rights are not waivable. There is one exception: the author or their successor in interest may, by signed written document, waive the right of integrity in whole or in part, and that waiver may be made using an electronic signature. It may be granted at any time and is valid even if the work was created before the law took effect. In a joint work with two or more authors, the waiver of one of them is sufficient, absent agreement to the contrary — an important fact if you collaborate.

5. 5

   Step 5: Work made for hire generates no moral rights

   It is the rule that most surprises people working under contract: a work created as “work made for hire” generates no moral rights, except where so provided by signed written agreement. This includes work created by an employee in the regular course of their duties, as well as work created by an independent contractor under that figure, which the law defines by a closed list of uses — contribution to a collective work, part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, translation, supplementary work, compilation, instructional text, test, answer material for a test and atlas — and provided the parties expressly agree in a signed writing that it will be considered work made for hire.

6. 6

   Step 6: When you cannot invoke them

   The author or successor in interest may not invoke moral rights when the work is legitimately used for purposes of criticism, parody or commentary, news, educational or research purposes. To determine whether a use is covered, the totality of the circumstances is considered, including the purpose of the use, the nature of the work, and the size and substance of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole.

7. 7

   Step 7: The remedies, and what registration adds

   A violation entitles the author or their successors to seek temporary or permanent injunctions to vindicate their rights, to compensation for damages and to obtain monetary indemnification. And here is the concrete advantage of registering: for a registered work, and where the violation is principally aimed at generating commercial or economic benefit, the author may opt to ask the court for statutory damages instead of actual damages, in an amount of no less than $750 and no more than $20,000 per violation per registered work, at the court’s discretion, calculated on the number of registered works and independently of the number of copies. If the case is resolved in favor of the author of a registered work, the court shall always set costs, fees and litigation expenses in their favor.

8. 8

   Step 8: You have three years

   Any action or proceeding brought to enforce any provision of this law must be initiated no later than three (3) years from the date the affected person knew or should have known of the arising of the facts giving rise to the cause of action.

The Intellectual Property Registry is attached to the Department of State and is where a work is voluntarily registered; how to do it is in our Intellectual Property Registry guide. Remedies for a violation are sought in court. If your concern is the use of your image rather than your work, that is the right-to-one’s-image guide; and if it is a trademark or trade name, that is another guide.

• Believing you must register the work to have moral rights: they exist from the moment you fix it in a tangible medium.
• Waiving without reading: only the integrity right is waivable, and by signed writing.
• Assuming a commissioned contract leaves you moral rights: it generates none absent a signed written agreement.
• Forgetting the access right: you may demand reasonable access to the original or unique copy in another’s possession.
• Confusing moral rights with economic rights: the latter belong to the federal system.
• Letting the three years lapse from when you knew or should have known of the facts.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Estado de Puerto Rico

  Departamento de Estado

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Department of State

  Departamento de Estado

  estado.pr.gov