Moral Rights in Cases Involving Multiple Ownership

Abstract

This paper presents the main contemporary challenges related to the exercise of moral rights in the context of plural creation (joint authorship, collective works (oeuvres collectives) and composite (compound) works) from a comparative perspective. The first part of this paper will show that the classic co-ownership rules which apply in cases of multiple authors (mainly tenancy in common and the resulting rule of unanimity) provide only an elliptical regulation of the co-existence of multiple moral rights, which is problematic in the case of massive collaborative projects. The second part of this paper analyses how copyright law has succeeded in limiting, using several legal mechanisms (inherent limitations to moral rights, contracts, “fairness”), the power of co-authors or contributors to act in a way which is detrimental to the interests of other co-authors.