Hansmann, Henry and Marina Santilli. “Authors’ and Artists’ Moral Rights:  A Comparative Legal and Economic Analysis.” The Journal of Legal Studies 26 1 (1997): 95-143. Print.

This article considers the European civil-law jurisdiction of “moral rights” and their recent adoption in the United States.  Moral rights are essentially an artists’ – or deceased artists’ family’s – rights to works of art even after the transfer of copyright from artist to another individual/organization.  Specifically, the authors of this piece conduct a sustained economic analysis to determine how moral rights statues effect the “reputational externalities to the potential benefit, not just of the individual artist, but of other owners of the artist’s work and of the public at large” (95).  The article also argues for a replacement of moral rights doctrine with an expanded copyright system that recognizes the rights to display of visual artists.

The authors discuss the four basic moral rights in this article before beginning their economic analysis of moral rights.  The right of integrity -an artist’s work must remain in its original state to protect the artist’s personal feelings over the work, the artist’s reputation, and the community interest in the work – becomes the primary emphasis of this legal study.  As an alternative to the right of integrity, the authors provide a couple of legal options:

1. Copyright – This accepts the premise that by copyrighting a piece of art you actually are turning a public good into a private good because after copyright the good can be capitalized by the artist.
2. Trademark Law – working in concert with the Lanham Act, trademark law outlaws false representations of goods and services.  The authors claim that trademark law can work as integrity rights because it can be invoked to protect reputation by imposters.
3. Display Rights – This would allow visual artists to maintain the same amount of control as copyright provides for literary authors.  In other words, each viewing of a piece by a visual artist would command royalty.
4. Leasing – The use of the lease, instead of selling artwork, would allow the artist to maintain control over the work of art despite being “viewed” by someone else.

After providing alternatives to the right of integrity, the authors note how the right of integrity is enforceable during the artist’s life and after the artist’s death.  They also highlight what sort of damages can be rewarded for infringing on an artist’s right of integrity and discuss how different countries in Europe deal with the alienable or inalienable position of moral rights.   Besides the right to integrity, the authors also briefly discuss the other three moral rights:

1. The right to withdraw – The artist has the right to withdraw a work from public view even after selling the piece.
2. The right of disclosure – The artist has the choice to determine if and when their work is ready to be displayed to the public.
3. The right of attribution – The artists has the right to affirm their own works and disallow their name on works not completed by them.  It sounds obvious; however, a good case in point is the work of pseudonymous authors.