Moral Rights in the International Copyright Regime

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the international copyright regime and the global status of moral rights. The global system for copyright protection defines the environment for moral rights. International agreements have included some form of protection for moral rights since 1928, first appearing in the Berne Convention. Since then, their international presence has grown in two ways. First, moral rights have been adopted and modernized in an unprecedented number of jurisdictions, including a historic number of common law countries. Second, the specific question of how moral rights should respond to new technology has begun to be addressed by the WIPO Internet Treaties. The Treaties make an explicit attempt to create digital moral rights, in the form of a new moral right for performers.