2.4: Moral Rights

In the fourth section you will be introduced to the important topic of moral rights. 

Even if you do not expect to get a financial return from your dance, you may well want to be credited as the author of the dance.  And you might also want to be able to stop third parties from altering your dance work in ways that you do not agree with.

The objective is that at the end of this section you will be able to:

  • Identify your moral rights in your dance work 
  • Be aware of how to assert your right to be identified as author  
  • Know whether you can choose not to enforce your moral rights
  • Understand what might amount to derogatory treatment of your dance work

Developing understanding

Consider the following paper introducing moral rights as well as the credit section at the end of the film:

Which of the credits at the end of the film arise from the law of copyright, and which are there because it is ethically ‘right’ that the contributors should be acknowledged?

Think back to the earlier section on the types of works that copyright protects and remember that there will be a number of copyright authors in this film.  

To answer the question, you would first need to identify those copyrights, and to identify who is the author of each.

The game is on!

We introduced you to Copyright User in part 2.1 Describe Your Practice Consider the following video as part of their “The Game Is On!” resource. Look in particular at the following Case File which is all about moral rights.

External links will open in a new web browser tab.

Watch the video and think about the rights of attribution and integrity as you go through it.

Considerations

Do you have moral rights in your dance work? Who else might have moral rights in the work that you are involved in?

How would you go about asserting your right to be identified as author? Can you choose not to enforce your moral rights? What might amount to derogatory treatment of your dance work?