Moral Rights 

Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and first recognized in France and Germany, before they were included in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1928.  While the United States became a signatory to the convention in 1988, it still does not completely recognize moral rights as part of copyright law, but rather as part of other bodies of law, such as defamation or unfair competition. Those jurisdictions that include moral rights in their copyright statutes are called droit d'auteur states, which literally means "right of the author".

Moral rights 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 the integrity of the work bars the work from alteration, distortion or mutilation.  Anything else that may detract from the artist's relationship with the work even after it leaves the artist's possession or ownership may bring these moral rights into play.  Moral rights are distinct from any economic rights tied to copyright, thus even if an artist has assigned his or her rights to a work to a third party he or she still maintains the moral rights to the work.  Some jurisdictions allow for the waiver of moral rights.  In the United States, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) recognizes moral rights, but only applies to works of visual art.

Berne Convention 

Article 6bis of the Berne Convention protects attribution and integrity, stating:

Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.

Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, September 9, 1886, art. 6bis, S. Treaty Doc. No. 27, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 41 (1986).

In most of Europe it is not possible for authors to assign their moral rights (unlike the copyright itself, which is regarded as an item of property which can be sold, licensed, lent, mortgaged or given like any other property). They can agree not to enforce them (and such terms are very common in contracts in Europe). There may also be a requirement for the author to 'assert' these moral rights before they can be enforced. In many books, for example, this is done on a page near the beginning, in and amongst the British Library/Library of Congress data.

Some European countries also provide for artist resale rights, which mean that artists are entitled to a portion of the appreciation of the value of their work each time it is sold. These rights are granted in respect of a non Anglo-Saxon tradition -- the droits d'auteur concept rather than copyright. Droits d'auteur, and most legislation implementing it, also grants all creators various moral rights beyond the economic rights recognized in most copyright jurisdictions (see also parallel import).

Source: Moral Rights on WikiPedia