The Moral Rights of Authors and Artists

This book offers a comprehensive and comparative exploration of moral rights through the ages and across the globe, drawn from Mira T. Sundara Rajan's international experience and practical insights as an artist and author.

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Moral rights are held by authors and artists under copyright laws around the world and serve to recognize their role and rights as creators.

In the technological context, these rights have acquired a new importance. Moral rights respond to a growing public need for the integrity of knowledge, while providing much-needed support in the struggle against copyright piracy. Crucially, they affirm the basic human dignity of authors and artists everywhere. They offer the potential for new approaches to copyright conflicts - for harmonizing public and private interests, commercial and cultural priorities, copyright and Copyleft, through a time-tested and universally relevant idea.

Moral Rights of Authors and Artists: From the Birth of Copyright to the Age of Artificial Intelligence tells the story of moral rights as the idea developed through the ages, from their antecedents in Asia and Europe to their modern emergence in British and European copyright laws, and their recent, reluctant yet powerful acceptance in the United States. It paints an unparalleled comparative picture of copyright law, reaching from North America to Australia and New Zealand, India, Japan, Korea, and all across Continental Europe - drawn from the author's rich international experience, and her practical insights as an author and artist herself. Above all, this book explores the unprecedented relevance of moral rights in the age of artificial intelligence, where they can help to affirm the importance of human creativity at its most vulnerable. It is a powerful work of illumination and advocacy.