Moral and commercial rights

As a creator of content, you have certain rights protected by the Copyright Act which are free and automatic as soon as the content is in material form.  These are the same rights as we discussed in Part 1 of this module. Let’s recap:

Moral rights:

Allow you as a creator to preserve and protect your connection with your work. You have the the right to:

• Attribution- Be acknowledged as the creator of the material
• Against false attribution- right to prevent someone else from being credited as the author/creator of the works
• Integrity- Prevent the material from being treated in way that would harm your reputation such as distortion, mutilation, or alteration

Commercial rights:

 The copyright owner can restrict the reuse of the material by other people. These rights can be referred to as economic rights. Unless you assign your copyright to someone else you have the exclusive right to:

• Profit from the works
• Choose how and by whom the work is used
• Make adaptions or translations of the work

Important: As the creator you may choose or be obligated to transfer or assign your commercial/economic rights. Many organisations include a clause in their employment conditions which specifies that the ‘company owns all intellectual property created by employees in the course of their work'.

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