A/HRC/28/57 The roots of “moral and material interests” of authors in copyright law A. 30. During the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the language referring to the protection of the moral and material interests of authors was included only after considerable debate.11 Partly, the disagreement stemmed from two divergent traditions of philosophical justification for copyright protection. 31. The “moral rights” tradition emphasizes the nature of creative work as an expression of its author’s personality and as a product of uniquely personal labour. According to that view, the exclusive right of authors to control the use of their creative works extends from the duty to respect the author. The moral rights philosophy is strongly associated with German law and the French tradition of droit d’auteur that greatly influenced continental Europe, Latin America and former French colonies. 32. In contrast, the “utilitarian” view approaches copyright protection as a form of commercial regulation, aimed at encouraging greater production and dissemination of creative works. The utilitarian view is strongly associated with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its former colonies. 33. In practice, copyright protection in all countries reflects a mixture of both approaches. The moral rights philosophy, however, is essential to understanding the status acquired by moral and material interests of creators in human rights law. B. Protecting and promoting the moral interests of authors 34. While the author’s material or property interest in their work is of limited duration and may be alienated by contract, a common thread among moral rights provisions is that those rights may not be waived by contract because of the unique link between an author and their work, and/or of the mark of the author’s personality in that work. Moral rights are often invoked to protect authors from abuses by publishers, distributors or collectors. 35. The Berne Convention specifies that States should protect the inalienable right of authors to claim authorship of the work (the right to attribution) and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author��s honour or reputation (the right to integrity) (art. 6 bis). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has interpreted those rights of attribution and integrity to form part of the moral interests referred to in human rights law. 12 In some countries, copyright laws recognize additional moral rights beyond those two basic ones. 36. The moral right to object to distortions or modifications of a work must be interpreted in balance with the right of others to reinterpret cultural inheritance and exercise their own creativity. The destruction of an artistic work most clearly illustrates a violation of the creator’s right of integrity. Moral rights may also require the preservation of certain works, as the sale of a painting or statue does not extinguish the artist’s moral rights. In contrast, a parody of a work should typically not be understood as a derogatory action. Indeed, many countries specifically allow for parody even without the permission of the original author, recognizing the expressive and creative value of this form of artistic 11 12 8 See Peter Yu, “Reconceptualizing Intellectual Property Interests in a Human Rights Framework”, U.C. Davis Law Review, No. 40 (2007), p. 1051–1058; Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), p. 222. General comment No. 17, para. 7.