Terminology

Moral rights are personal legal rights belonging to the creator of copyright works and cannot be transferred, assigned or sold.  They ensure that the creators of works are correctly attributed and the works are not treated in a derogatory way and that the integrity of the work is upheld.

By assigning ownership of the copyright of a work to someone else the author transfers control over its future publication or reproduction to the new owner. But the author almost always retains moral rights to his/her work regardless of the copyright owner. This provides the creator of a work the right to be identified as the author and the right to take legal action against any change to the title of or derogatory treatment of the work itself.