הזכות המוסרית, הגנת הסבירות והאיזונים החיוניים

תקציר

The moral right of integrity under copyright doctrine protects authors and artists from infringing modifications to their works. The right was recognized in Israeli statutory law in 1981, and its codification in Israel's Copyright Act 2007 provides a defense of "reasonableness". It is put forward that both the right and the defense allowing reasonable modifications derive from the same ground: an author's autonomy of expression. This article develops the characterization of the moral right of integrity as a right of autonomy of expression, in place of the personality right it is often considered to be. The protection of autonomy of expression pursuant to the integrity right is compared with its protection pursuant to free speech doctrines. The concept of autonomy of expression is also developed through the philosophical works of Immanuel Kant, and philosophers following him. The new Act provides for an essential balancing between the autonomies of both the author and the modifier of a work. The limitation on the right is essential given the understanding of autonomy not as an absolute, but as requiring the respect of the autonomy of another. Here that other is the modifying author, as well as the public in the development of its cultural language. Such a limitation on the right is common in other jurisdictions, albeit often through other legal metaphors and means.