How moral is a 'moral rights waiver'?

By Guest Blogger, Therese Jefferson, Research Fellow, WiSER

The issue of academic freedom and independence is a very timely topic for discussion. Recently I had the experience of being requested to express my consent to sign a “waiver of moral rights” if awarded a contract to carry out ‘independent’ research for a Federal government department. I had never heard of such a thing before and it raised two questions:

1. What is a moral right?
According to the Australian Copyright Council: “Moral rights are the rights that individual creators have in relation to copyright works or films they have created. They separate from the “economic rights” of the copyright owner, such as the right to reproduce a work or communicate it to the public…. Creators have the right:
• To be attributed (or credited) for their work;
• Not to have their falsely attributed; and
• Not to have their work treated in a derogatory way.”
(From: www.copyright.org.au/pdf/acc/infosheets_pdf/G043.pdf)

2. What is a moral rights waiver?
This is a clause that seeks to remove the moral rights described above. An example of a moral rights waiver is the following clause taken from a contract recently sent to a colleague:

“The contractor will obtain from its personnel and any sub-contractors, to the extent permitted by applicable law, unconditional:
• Consents to any alteration to, including additions to, or deletions from, any Contract Material used or produced in connection with the Agreed Services that would otherwise infringe their moral rights…

We'd like to open up discussion of this issue as it seems that the trend is to add this clause into university research contracts.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Would you sign a contract that contained this clause? Do you think it's a cause for concern?