The right of authorship on a work
| Author | Ciprian Raul Romitan |
| Position | Lawyer ? Bucharest Bar Managing Editor Romanian Intellectual Property Review |
| Pages | 155-160 |
AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, www.juridicaljournal.univagora.ro
ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677
No. 1 (2014), pp. 155-160
155
THE RIGHT OF AUTHORSHIP ON A WORK
C. R. Romian
Ciprian Raul Romian
Lawyer – Bucharest Bar
Managing Editor Romanian Intellectual Property Review
*Correspondence: Ciprian Raul Romian, S.C. Roş şi Asociaii, 35 Mircea Vod St., bl. M27,
fl. 6, ap. 16-18, 3 District, Bucharest, Romania
E-mail: ciprian.romitan@asdpi.ro
Abstract
The moral rights represent the legal expression of the relationship bet ween the work
and its creator; they precede, survive and exert a permanent influence on the economic rights.
Moral rights are independent of economic rights, the author of a work preserving these rights
even after the transfer of its property rights.
The right to claim recognition as the author of the work, called in the doctrine as the
"right of paternity of the work" is enshrined in art. 10 lit. b) of the law and it i s based on the
need to respect the natural connection between the author and his work. The right to
authorship is the most important prerogative that constitutes intellectual property rights in
general and consists of recognizing the true author of a scientific, literary or artistic work.
Key words: author, copyright, moral right, the right of authorship, The Berne
Convention from 1886, The Rome Conference from 1928
Introduction
The Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works of September 9,
18861, which is the f irst and primary mean of international protection of copyright of literary,
artistic and scientific works, didn’t provide exclusive dispositions on which the moral rights of
the author to be recognized as a separate faculty of law operating separately from the
economic rights. In 1926, during a course held at the Hague National Law Academy, the
Italian jurist Francesco Ruffini, a professor at the University of Turin, prophesied, saying that
the moral right of the author "is about to become a dogma of international common law".
Following the research in the field of doctrine and jurisprudence, during the Rome
Conference of 19282, when there was a second revision of the Berne Convention, it was
decided the existence of authors moral rights and also the introduction of article 6 bis under
the following form: "Independent of the economic rights, and even after the transfer of those
rights, the author retains the right to claim the authorship of the work and the right to object
to any distortion, mutilation or other change of that work which would be prejudicial to its
honour or reputation (paragraph 1). It is reserved for the national legislation of the Union
Countries to establish the conditions for exercising these rights. The means to defend them
will be governed by the laws of the country where the protection is required (paragraph 2)”.
1 The Berne Convention for t he protection of literary and artistic works of September 9, 1886, revised at Berlin
on 13 November 1908 at Rome on June 2, 1928, published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 123 of 31 May
1935. Romania joined the Bern e Convention according to Law no. 77/1998, published in the Official Gazette of
Romania, Part I, No. 156 of 17 April 1998.
2 The Rome Conference was held from May 7 to June 2, 1928. At the reviewing Conference from Rome attended
34 delegates from the 37 member states of the Union, including Romania, and delegates from 21 countries that
were not member s of the Berne Union. The Rome Act of 1928 was signed by a total of 28 countries in cl uding
Romania, and by the deadline set by the conference (August 1, 1931) was ratified by 13 states.
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