Moral Rights

 by Sybil Johnson

Not long ago Penny Publications sold AQMM, EQMM, FS&F, Analog and Asimov’s to the new consortium Must Read Magazines. The staff remains the same and supposedly it’s business as usual for these magazines.You can read more about it here.

There has been discussion on SMFS (Short Mystery Fiction Society) about changes to the contracts when they buy stories, in particular the addition of a moral rights clause where the author agrees to waive them for the story. 

Moral rights? What the heck is that? I’ve never seen one in a contract, not that I’ve had many. Apparently, others in SMFS hadn’t either so it created a stir. 

Moral rights is not the same as a morality/morals clause. Here is SFWA’s description of moral rights: “an author's right to control the integrity and attribution of their work, even after they have transferred copyright ownership.” Basically, the right to have your name on a story and the story published as you wrote it. A morality or morals clause concerns the right of the publisher/movie producer, etc., to cancel all connection with the writer/performer for immoral conduct. So quite different.

Writer’s Beware has a nice article on what a writer needs to know about moral rights. Quite an interesting read and too long for me to summarize. A must read for writers. There’s something called the Bern convention that covers it. While the US became a signatory to it in 1988, there is no provision in US copyright law for moral rights. Apparently, Congress decided the patchwork of laws at the state and federal level were adequate. Later, copyright law was modified to include moral rights, but only for visual art.

This situation created enough of a stir that Must Reads decided to remove moral rights clauses from its standard contracts. Here’s the SFWA’s press release on the subject;

Has anyone had any experience with a moral rights clause in a contract? Did you sign it? Did you think it was a deal breaker?