INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL «GLOBAL SCIENCE AND INNOVATIONS 2023: CENTRAL ASIA» ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN, APRIL 2023 95 The concept of moral right developed in the continental Europe during the nineteenth
century. It first appeared in French law. France is therefore known as the mother country of moral
right from whence it spread to all continental European and Latin American laws and into the
Berne Convention. Moral rights as such are not recognized in the common law countries except in
the United Kingdom where it was introduced as late as 1988. What is denominated as moral right
is protected in these countries by such laws as the torts of passing off, injurious falsehood,
defamation, unfair competition laws, and so on. Since moral right is essentially a product of
European countries, particularly France, Germany, and Italy, it can be better understood and
appreciated in all its aspects only with reference to the laws of these countries.
Moral rights “stem from the fact that the work is a reflection of the personality of the
creator, just as much as the economic rights reflect the author’s need to keep body and soul
together” (Masouye, 1978). They are invariably tied to the person of the creator of a work. There
are three basic moral rights: (a) right of publication (b) right of paternity (c) right of integrity[4,
p.91].
The discussion above clearly points out that the nature and scope of exclusive rights
granted to the authors determine the extent of their monopoly power to control or limit the access
to their works. The wider and extensive the scope of these rights so much greater is the ability of
the authors to exact monopoly rent from the use of their works. Creation of new rights, or any
enlargement of the existing rights, would naturally result in the contraction of users’ ability to
access the works. This may also occur when courts are inclined to favor the interests of the authors
or the right owners by giving a broader interpretation of the existing rights far stretching their
scope. Such enlargement and court interpretation, however, may be highly prejudicial to the
interest of the users, and against the very objective of copyright – to promote the dissemination
and advancement of knowledge - if it went to the extent of diluting the very limitation and
exception provided by law in the larger societal interest. Hence, it is indisputable that authors must
be rewarded with exclusive rights to ensure adequate generation and flow of creative works. But
the scope of these rights must not extend beyond the point that would limit the creation and impede
the free flow of ideas and information, the basic ingredients for the advancement of learning. This
clearly is the reason why these rights are not absolute rights; they are defined with proper
delimitation to their scope to ensure free access to information needed for the wider social and
economic development [5, p.27].
Inherent to this is the fundamental tension in copyright law – the need to maintain balance
between the rights of authors and the larger public interest, such as education, research, and access
to information. Has copyright really been able to achieve this balance? Or is it simply a myth?
This perhaps is the most vexing question and the one which ever keeps on nagging copyright.