TITLE:
Moral Rights in the Information Society
AUTHORS:
Ying Zhou
KEYWORDS:
Moral Rights, Justified, Conflicting Interests
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.5 No.2,
June
23,
2014
ABSTRACT: This essay mainly concentrates on the value of moral rights in this
ever-developing society. Above all, the background of moral rights is provided,
giving us a brief introduction. There are two categories of rights in copyright
system; one is economic rights, which can bring economic interests to right
holders directly; the other one is moral rights, which stands for the creator’s
personality but can’t produce economic interests directly. As to international
regulation, Art.6 bis of the Berne
Convention has some clauses on such rights. In moral rights system, rights are
divided into four kinds: the right to be identified as an author or a
director—the paternity right or the right to be identified; the right to object
to derogatory treatment of work—the integrity right; the false attribution of
work—the false attribution right; and the right to privacy of certain
photographs and films—the privacy right. All these rights are beneficial as
they can protect creators’ rights from the four aspects. Form this standpoint,
it is reasonable to grant moral rights. However, in the following, some
shortcomings of moral rights are to be displayed as these rights are unable to
meet the requirements of the modern society. With the advent and development of
internet, collectivization, digitization and employment, some measures should
be taken so as to adjust the moral rights system to keep pace of the society.
From my standpoint, it is still justified to keep moral rights existing but we
should make some adaptations of them in order to meet the needs of this digital
era and the information society.