Members Alert: Moral Rights Under Threat

 

The truncated version which appears on the SPAA website differs from the full version available here on the AWG website – with one significant deletion: the section that acknowledges writers’ Moral Rights in the Script as a literary work. Screen Australia is party to the full agreement and their summary of the AMRCF correctly includes the script. It is available on the Screen Australia website here.

 

The truncated version being disseminated by SPAA is misleading, and is being used by some as justification to attempt to deny screenwriters moral rights in their scripts (not legally permissible in Australia) or assert that the sweeping ‘consents’ they are demanding are necessary and standard ‘industry practice’. They are not.

 

The only consents a producer needs are those included in the Agreement – if you are being asked for waivers (which are prohibited and unenforceable under Australian law) or broad consents beyond those in the AMRCF please contact the AWG.  Please check your contracts – and ask your agent to do the same. Being pressured to give up your moral rights is actually against the law – and the Guild is here to help you assert this fundamental right. It is a human right as reflected in Article 6bis of the international Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 in Australia.

 

It represents the most basic and important foundation on which your reputation and your career are built. Your right to be recognised as the author of your work.

 

 

 

Moral rights are a creator’s non-economic/personal rights in a copyrighted works or film they have created. Specifically they include the right to:

• be identified and attributed (i.e. credited) as an author of their work;

• not to have their work falsely attributed (i.e. credited to another); and

• ensure their work is not subjected to derogatory treatment (i.e. treated in any manner harmful to the author's honour or reputation).

 

For more information, you may wish to read this recent interview with Ian David by Mac Gudgeon, and also refer to the Australian Copyright Council’s information sheet available to download here.

 

 

Moral Rights are described as “non-economic” only insofar as:

A. They are not directly attached to a financial return or income stream for creators or copyright owners; and

B. They cannot be assigned, licensed, sold, traded or bequeathed in a will.

 

However, a writer’s reputation is their currency; it’s how their ‘worth’ is determined. Moral Rights enable a writer to protect their reputation by ensuring the correct attribution of their work.

 

Moreover, this right of attribution is the cornerstone on which collecting societies, such as AWGACS (Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting Society), assert their members’ authorship over audiovisual material and collect secondary royalties owing to them in much of the world. So, although moral rights are not directly attached to a financial return in Australia, they are internationally.

 

Moral Rights only take effect when your name is attached to the finished work as an author or co-author. Then, and only then, do Moral Rights become important by protecting your voice, your contribution, from being distorted or falsely claimed.

 

The battle to recognise screenwriters as joint authors of the works they help create for the screen was won by the Australian Writers’ Guild over a decade ago. We helped write the legislation that it is now a vital part of the cultural landscape of this country.

 

We fought hard for them, we earned them, we got them, and we’ll keep them!

 

Please contact your Guild if you are being asked to waive your moral rights – being asked to give broad sweeping consents to infringement of your moral rights – or if you see “work made for hire” in your contract. All these are essentially asking you to give up your right to authorship of your work.