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Treiger-Bar-Am, Leslie Kim --- "Adaptations with Integrity" [2006] ELECD 101; in Porsdam, Helle (ed), "Copyright and Other Fairy Tales" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Copyright and Other Fairy Tales

Editor(s): Porsdam, Helle

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845426019

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Adaptations with Integrity

Author(s): Treiger-Bar-Am, Leslie Kim

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

4. Adaptations with integrity
Leslie Kim Treiger-Bar-Am

INTRODUCTION
Adaptations abound. Versions of Hans Christian Andersen's tales are count-
less. In bookshops and libraries it is often easier to find `The Little Mermaid'
as retold by others, than to find Andersen's own tale. The variety of video
versions, puzzles and toys based on that tale are astounding. The Disney
version of Andersen's `The Little Mermaid' is titled `Disney's Masterpiece',
and is already called a Disney `classic'. Disney has since produced a follow-
up, Return to the Sea.
This chapter discusses authors' rights to control modifications, including
adaptations, of literary, visual and musical artworks. The author's moral right
of integrity will be examined. Upon the Anglo-American divide between
copyright and moral rights, it is the latter that will be in focus. The economic
interest in copyright can be used to prevent modifications to artworks, and
gives copyright owners control over derivative uses of the primary work. Yet
this analysis examines authors' moral right of integrity.
The analysis will centre on UK law, and its enactment of section 80 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (hereinafter `Act'). Section 80
provides that an author has the right to prevent treatment that `amounts to
distortion or mutilation of the work or is otherwise prejudicial to the honour
or reputation of the author or director'.1 Section 80 implemented into UK law
Article 6bis of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works. ...