The conceptual transformation of moral rights

A classic question of comparative copyright theory is how to understand the long-standing discrepancy between civil law and common law approaches to moral rights. The recent wave of moral rights legislation in common law countries has undermined the standard narratives that relied on the idea of an inherent link between the formal inclusion of moral rights in copyright law and strong moral rights protection reflective of a particular copyright philosophy. This article provides an alternative explanation that understands both the long-standing discrepancy between and the recent convergence of civil law and common law moral rights systems as the expression of a global conceptual transformation that began in Continental Europe in the late 19th century and that has now reached most common law jurisdictions, including the United States. In addition to providing a close study of this conceptual transformation against the background of comparative copyright theory, this article also contributes to the emerging study of the globalization of legal thought by providing a specific example of how and why a particular legal concept was created, adopted, and globalized.