Avtal om ideella rättigheter - En komparativ studie av upphovsmäns ställning i Sverige och USA

Sammanfattning: The legislation on authors’ moral rights to attribution and integrity in Sweden and USA differ to a large extent. In Sweden moral rights are a part of the copyright law and reside in every work that qualifies for copyright protection. Moral rights cannot be transferred, but can only be waived in regard to a use of the work that is limited to form and extent to be legally binding. The guiding principle for the evaluation if a waiver is sufficiently limited is if the author is able to overlook the consequences of his waiver. The waiver must specify the work and the use to which the waiver aims. Contracts amounting to a general transfer of the copyright are therefore not considered to implicate a waiver. In the US, the federal moral rights prescribed in the Visual Artists Rights Act only benefit artists of visual art. These rights to integrity and attribution only apply to the first two hundred copies of the visual artwork, numbered and signed by the author. These moral rights cannot be transferred but they can be waived by the author in a written document for a use that is sufficiently specified. Authors other than visual artists have to find other legal sources to impose a duty for the acquirer of the work to identify the author with his work and to abstain from making changes to the work. In case law, authors have based rights similar to moral rights on rules of unfair competition and contracts. These rights depend on the wording in the contract with the acquirer and on other surrounding circumstances. Where the contract contains an unlimited transfer which gives the acquirer a right to use the work in any manner he wishes the author is considered to have given up all rights to the work and can no longer object to uses of the work where he is not credited as the author or where the work is subject to far-reaching changes The disparities between the two countries’ legislation mean that the wording in a contract might amount to a valid waiver in one of the countries while it is not valid in the other. In the US contracts of copyright are often required to be in written form while the acquisition can be unlimited. General transfers of copyrights without explicit limitations will often be considered to transfer all rights to the work to the acquirer. In Sweden there are no formal requirements for contracts of copyright transfers, however the moral rights can only be waived for a use that is sufficiently limited and general formulated transfer of copyright are presumed not to be total. International businesses that enter into contracts with authors about moral rights should therefore take these disparities into consideration when drafting the contract.