Credit and the rights that stay with a creator

You let a publisher use your illustration. Later it appears without your name and with changes you dislike. The publisher paid the agreed fee, so is there anything left to object to? Often, yes: credit and the treatment of your work are protected separately from payment and ownership, and your contract can protect them further.

These protections are called moral rights: the right to be named as the author of your work and the right to object to changes that harm your honour or reputation. They sit alongside the economic rights that govern copying, licensing and sale. 1

Credit can be a right and a promise

The Berne Convention requires its member countries to give authors two rights, independently of their economic rights and even after they transfer those rights: the right to claim authorship of the work, and the right to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of it that would harm their honour or reputation. 4 The remedies are set by the law of the country where you claim protection, and countries draw the scope and the exceptions very differently, as the U.S. and UK sections below show. 4

A contract can promise more than the law gives you. Write the credit you want into the agreement: the exact credit line, where it appears, and what happens if it is left out. "Credit the illustrator on the title page and wherever the image is sold individually" is something both sides can check; "the creator will be acknowledged" is not. For the clauses to look for, read the terms that decide how a deal will feel later.

The United States protects credit for a narrow group of artworks

Section 106A of the U.S. Copyright Act gives attribution and integrity rights only to the author of a "work of visual art": a painting, drawing, print or sculpture that exists as a single copy or in a signed and numbered edition of 200 or fewer, or a still photograph produced for exhibition purposes only, as a single signed copy or a signed and numbered edition of 200 or fewer. 2

The definition excludes posters, maps, technical drawings, applied art, films, books, magazines, newspapers, electronic publications, merchandise, advertising and packaging, and any work made for hire. 2 So an illustration printed in a book has no federal attribution or integrity right: your credit depends on your contract.

If your work qualifies, you can:

• claim authorship, and stop your name being used on a work you did not create 2
• stop your name being used on your work if it has been distorted, mutilated or modified in a way that would harm your honour or reputation 2
• prevent intentional distortion, mutilation or modification that would harm your honour or reputation, and prevent the destruction of a work of recognized stature 2

These rights belong to you even if someone else owns the copyright or the physical work. For works created since the rights took effect they last for your life, and they cannot be transferred. You can waive them only in a written instrument you sign that identifies the specific work and the uses it covers; the waiver applies to nothing else. Changes caused by age, the nature of the materials, conservation, or the lighting and placement of a display do not count, unless the conservation or display is grossly negligent. 2

A second U.S. rule protects your name on any kind of work. Section 1202 makes it unlawful to remove or alter copyright management information without authority, which includes the author's name and the copyright notice conveyed with copies of the work, when the person knows (or, in a civil case, has reasonable grounds to know) that this will enable or conceal an infringement. 6 A court can award statutory damages of $2,500 to $25,000 for each violation. 6 Put your name and copyright notice on or with every copy you publish, such as in the caption or credit line, so that stripping it is something you can point to.

The UK protects more kinds of work, but you must assert credit

In the UK, moral rights apply to literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and to films. They cannot be sold or transferred; they can only be waived. 3 The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 gives:

• the right to be identified as the author of a work, or the director of a film 5
• the right to object to derogatory treatment: an addition, deletion, alteration or adaptation that distorts or mutilates the work or otherwise harms the author's honour or reputation 3
• the right not to be named as the author of a work you did not create 3
• a privacy right for a person who commissions photographs or a film for private and domestic purposes, such as wedding photos 3

Assert the right to be identified, or it does nothing. It is not infringed unless you have asserted it, either in an assignment of the copyright or in a written document you sign, and a court weighs any delay in asserting it when deciding the remedy. 5 The IPO's own example is an author asserting the right in a publishing contract. 3 Put the assertion in every contract you sign for a book, illustration or film.

The right to be identified does not apply to computer programs, typeface designs, computer-generated works, works whose copyright belonged to the author's employer, works made to report current events, or contributions to a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical or to a reference work such as an encyclopaedia or dictionary. 5 The rights to be identified, to object to derogatory treatment and to privacy last as long as copyright in the work; the right against false attribution lasts until 20 years after the person's death. 5

Before you sign a waiver

1. Read what the waiver covers. A UK waiver must be in writing signed by you, and it can cover one work, a type of work or all your works, including future ones; it can be conditional or unconditional, and it can be made revocable. 5 A U.S. waiver under section 106A covers only the work and uses it names. 2
2. Offer a narrower waiver. Name the work and the edits the other side actually needs, such as cropping, resizing or colour changes for print, and make the waiver conditional on your credit appearing.
3. If you are commissioning the work, list the edits and adaptations you expect to make and get the consent or waiver you need in writing before the work starts.
4. Keep credit and permission apart. Crediting someone does not give you permission to copy their work, and being paid does not settle your credit. Settle permission, ownership, credit and the freedom to alter the work as four separate terms.

When something has already gone wrong

1. Save the original, the altered or uncredited use with its address and the date you found it, and the agreement. Saving evidence explains how.
2. Name the problem precisely: missing credit, a false attribution, a specific alteration, or your work tied to a message you did not approve.
3. Identify what you are relying on: the credit clause in your contract, section 106A for a qualifying U.S. artwork, a UK moral right (for credit, only if you asserted it), or section 1202 if your name was stripped from copies.
4. Ask in writing for a specific fix, such as corrected credit online now and in the next printing, or the change reversed. Decide what a good resolution looks like before you send it.
5. If the other side refuses and you are considering a claim under section 106A, section 1202 or the UK Act, have a copyright lawyer in that country assess the claim before you send a formal demand.