Australian Copyright Law - Moral Rights

Moral Rights

In 2000, moral rights were recognised in Australian copyright legislation. Only individuals may exercise moral rights. The moral rights provided under Australian law now are:

• A right of attribution
  • the right to be clearly and reasonably prominently identified as the author, in any reasonable form
  • the right to avoid false attribution, where the work is falsely presented as being another's work
• Integrity of authorship
  • the right to not have the work treated in a derogatory manner (this is a right to protect the honour and reputation of the author)

Automatic resale rights (royalty payments to the author on subsequent resales of the original and reproductions) are not covered by Australian legislation. To the disappointment of artists' groups, the Australian government quietly announced its intention not to pursue resale rights (droit de suite) in 2006.

There are also proposals in Australia for the recognition of "Indigenous communal moral rights", aimed at assisting indigenous people to protect the integrity and sanctity of indigenous culture. A draft bill was circulated to a limited set of stakeholders in 2003; since then the Bill has been listed as one the government planned to pass, but has yet to be introduced.

From mid-2007, performers have also been granted moral rights in recordings of their performances, similar, but not identical, to the moral rights granted to authors. These were introduced as a result of Australia's ratification of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, which was required by the Australia's free trade agreement with Singapore, and the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.