Functions of Moral Rights in the Modern Information Society

Abstract

Moral rights are often analyzed in the context of protection of author's personal interests only and, as result, this theme attracts attention of researchers quite rarely. However, in the modern information society moral rights perform number of important roles. The basic moral right function is identification of a person as a creator of certain work. This acknowledgement is very important for an author, because it influence on his social status, profit, etc. On the other hand, the author's identification is necessary for normal use of a work, because any economic turnover requires identification of object involved in it. On this basic function, some additional functions are based, in particular, stimulation creative activity, identifying of characteristics of the work, prevention of unauthorized changes of the work, protection of culture heritage. At the same time, implementation of these functions in different countries depends strongly on traditions and peculiarities of the legislation development in this country. For example, in continental system of law “romantic” conception of copyright was implemented, which was based on relation to an author as a creator “inspired by the heaven”, while in anglo-saxon system of law copyright was an instrument for organization of economic exploitation of works. In the article functions of moral rights and their place in the modern information society, as well as peculiarities of implementation in different countries, are discussed. Moral rights became a guaranty that new ways of use of works will not be performed in the form that will break the author and his work completely where he is not able to influence to conditions of use of his work and to control correct identification of the title of the work, his name, prevent distortions of his work, etc. In the modern society, the role of state authorities increases as well, they should protect works which are in the public domain, provide possibility of use of “orphan works”, etc. Regrettably, currently in the legal doctrine there is no clear understanding of new role of copyright and place and role of moral rights, in particular.