The Inadequacy of UK Moral Rights Protection: A Comparative Study on the Waivability of Rights and Recontextualisation of Works in Copyright and Droit D'auteurs Systems
| Author | Jonas Brown-Pedersen |
| Position | Third year LLB student |
| Pages | 115-128 |
2018
LSE LAW REVIEW
115
The Inadequacy of UK Moral Rights Protection: A
Comparative Study on the Waivability of Rights and
Recontextualisation of Works in Copyright and Droit
D’auteurs Systems
Jonas Brown-Pedersen*
ABSTRACT
The paper examines two aspects of UK moral r ights protection, namely th e waiver of rights
provided for under section 87(2) of the Copyright, Designs an d Patents Act 1988 (‘CDPA’)
and th e protection of copyright works from recontextualisation, in a comparative study. The
jurisdictions compared are the UK, Canada, and the Nordic Countries. The paper argues that
UK protecti on of authors’ moral rights are i nsufficient, chiefly due to the operation of section
87(2) CDPA and the lack of protection against recontextualisation (‘the spirit of the
Convention’). The purpose of compari son is to furnish a lternative solutions existing under t he
same international framework as the CDPA. In concluding, the paper finds that comparing the
copyright l aw system of the UK to the Can adian hy brid sys tem and the Nor dic droit d’auteurs
systems reveals a scale from least to most substantial protection of moral rights, with a greater
emphasis on protection of th e spirit of the work in droit d’auteurs jurisdictions, as illustrated by
Swedish case law.
INTRODUCTION
International copyright law is, at its very core, a philosophical compromise. This
is no surprise: it is likely that all large, multilateral treaties are a result of some sort
of compromise between the philosophical schools followed by different Member
States, owing to the State-specific nature of law. These differences may turn out
to have little practical significance, or, as in the case of the 1886 Berne Convention
* Third year LLB student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London.
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