Authors’ rights refer to the rights of an author over the works they create. In a generic sense “authors’ rights” is used interchangeably with copyright and publishing rights. More specifically, author’s rights can refer to a continental European tradition mostly referred to by the French phrase droit d’auteur (meaning literally “author’s rights”), and often contrasted with the Anglo-American copyright tradition. “Both systems rely on different foundations: authors’ rights refer to the author as a natural person, whereas copyrights from the onset bestow all rights on the producer” (1). 

This leads to one of the biggest differences in these two systems: the importance of moral rights or personal rights. Originally, in the copyright tradition, moral rights did not exist and it was the right to copy, more associated with the commercialisation and distribution of the works (2). However, as moral rights are constituted at least on a basic level in the Berne Convention and most countries are members, including the UK and the US, the two traditions have become somewhat fused. Most countries in continental Europe are rooted in the authors’ rights tradition and moral rights have been established and are protected in EU copyright laws.