Last updated 16 August 2022

Moral rights are personal rights that belong to the creator or author of a work. A key feature of moral rights is that they are inalienable, which means that they remain with the author even though the copyright in a work may have been assigned to a third party.

The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) addresses three moral rights:

  • the right of attribution (i.e. the right to be named as author of a work)
  • the right of integrity (i.e. the right to object to derogatory treatment of a work)
  • the right not to have authorship falsely attributed.

Protection for both the right of attribution and the right of integrity applies to all works protected by copyright which existed on or after 21 December 2000, except films and any works included in films. There is no protection for films created before that date.