The Rights Of The United States - 2558 Words

During class, a topic was brought up that was very interesting and needed to be further investigated and researched. The topic is the rights of artists in the United States and what laws have been passed to deal with them, lawsuits that have occurred, and what the artists themselves think about the different rights. There has been a battle over copyright, moral rights, and resale rights of artists in the United States. Copyrights are basic rights that are given by acts that have been passed and they protect any creative works. Moral rights are trickier and are not as clearly defined. Resale rights are interesting to discuss because some artists have differing opinions, with each other and with the government officials. The rights of†¦show more content†¦Some artists also have the rights of attribution and integrity, meaning they can claim authorship and prevent the use of their name for works that are not theirs. There are different time constraints for a work to be copyrigh t-protected in the United States according to the Artists Rights Society. They also explained that any changes in copyright terms have occurred over the years, but now there is a total of 95 years of copyright protection of works published before January 1, 1978, and a term of the lifetime of the artist plus 70 years for works published after January 1, 1978. The term of copyright protection is different from country to country and depends on what the individual nations decide to do. On the â€Å"Copyright Basics† page of Artists Rights Society, they state that in 1994, the European Union, as a whole, established a term of the lifetime of the artist plus 70 years. Understanding the background information about copyright in the United States is helpful when discussing the specific issues right for artists. The moral rights of artists are somewhat difficult to explain because they are similar to copyrights. As specified by the College Art Association, â€Å"Copyright is seen a s a property right, one that creates economic incentives for authors to create works by giving them exclusive rights to control their work†¦By exploiting these rights, copyright owners can, if they are fortunate, earn an income.† Because a copyright is on the property, it ensures that the