How are Moral Rights treated under Italian Copyright Law?

As other civil law countries, Italian Law recognizes moral rights under the current copyright legislation.

Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. They include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. The preserving of the integrity of the work bars the work from alteration, distortion, or mutilation.

All these rights can be retained by the copyright holder regardless of the status of the economic rights.

In Italy, it is not possible for authors to assign or even waive their moral rights. This is following a tradition in European copyright itself, which is not regarded as an item of property which can be sold, but only licensed.

The purpose of the law is to protect the moral personality of the author as manifested in his work, provided it falls within what may be the subject of protection.

Italian Law places no time limit for claiming Moral rights; at the author's death the moral right may be claimed by his spouse and children and, in their absence, by parents and other ascendants. Each one of these can act without the consent of the other.

Moral right are inalienable and cannot be traded in any form.