Moral Rights in Nepal: Attribution and Integrity Under the Copyright Act
Moral rights in Nepal: the attribution and integrity rights the Copyright Act gives every creator, why they survive every sale, and how contracts treat them.
A Kathmandu agency crops a photographer's image, recolours it, and runs it in a campaign without her name. The agency's defence: 'we bought the photo.' Under Nepal's Copyright Act, that defence fails twice — because two rights never went on sale in the first place.
Moral rights in Nepal — attribution and integrity — are the creator's rights that survive every sale, licence and assignment. Brands and creators both deal with them better when they know exactly where the lines sit.
In short
Moral rights in Nepal are recognised by the Copyright Act, 2059 (2002) as two powers that belong to the author personally: the right of attribution — to be credited as the work's creator — and the right of integrity — to object to derogatory treatment of the work. They are not transferred by a sale or assignment: whoever buys the economic rights buys the copyright, not the authorship. In practice, attribution is the credit line in publications, merchandising and campaigns; integrity is the limit on how far a licensee may crop, recolour, edit or recontextualise. Contracts should therefore address credit and modification approvals explicitly, because the rights themselves cannot be signed away with the work.
Moral rights in Nepal: the two rights that do not sell
Nepal's copyright system separates two kinds of rights. Economic rights — reproduction, distribution, adaptation, licensing — are the rights that can be assigned in writing, and they are what a buyer purchases. Moral rights belong to the author as author: the right to be identified as the creator of the work, and the right to protect the work's integrity against treatment that damages their reputation.
The consequence that surprises buyers: an assignment moves the economic rights and leaves the moral rights with the creator. The site's registration guide puts it plainly — moral rights stay with the author regardless; registration records economic-rights ownership.
Attribution: the credit line as a legal right
Attribution is not a courtesy; it is a right. The photographer whose image anchors a tourism campaign, the illustrator whose drawing sells a book cover, the composer whose track closes a film — each holds the right to be named as the creator. Removing, obscuring or replacing that credit is a claim in its own right, independent of whether the economic rights were properly licensed.
For brands, the practical translation is simple: credit terms belong in every licence, agreed rather than assumed. For creators, the practical habit is keeping the licence that states the credit — because the dispute, when it comes, is evidentiary before it is legal.
| Scenario | Attribution question | Integrity question |
|---|---|---|
| Image licensed for an ad campaign | Is the photographer credited as agreed? | Has the image been cropped or altered beyond the licence? |
| Artwork on merchandise | Does the product carry the artist's name? | Does the product context harm the artist's reputation? |
| Book published by a press | Is the author named on the work? | Have edits changed the work's meaning? |
| Film or video production | Are composers and crew credited? | Is the work used in a context the creator would reject? |
| Work sold outright | Creator still holds attribution | Creator still may object to derogatory treatment |
Integrity: the limit on how far a licence can go
The integrity right lets the author object to derogatory treatment — distortions, mutilations, modifications, or uses that prejudice their honour or reputation. In Nepali practice the recurring cases are visual: a photograph cropped past its meaning, an artwork recoloured into an ad's palette, a serious work placed in a context that ridicules it, an illustration repurposed for a product the artist would never endorse.
The right does not freeze the work — ordinary editing, formatting and design adaptation are part of every publication. It draws a line at treatment that damages the creator. Where a campaign genuinely needs deep adaptation, the answer is consent: agree the modifications in the licence, with approval steps, rather than discovering the integrity right in a demand letter.
What contracts can and cannot do
Economic rights transfer in writing; moral rights stay with the author. So the drafting question is not 'how do we waive moral rights' but 'how do we make the licence workable within them'. The clauses that do that: a defined credit format (where the name appears, in what size), a modification schedule (what edits are pre-approved, what requires sign-off), a context limitation (uses the work may not appear in), and an approval mechanism with a response deadline.
This is also why Nepal's creator-first defaults make commissioning contracts load-bearing. The assignment paper secures the economic rights for the commissioning brand; the credit and approval clauses secure the working relationship. A contract with neither is a dispute with a start date.
For brands: using Nepali creators' work properly
The workflow that avoids moral-rights disputes is short: identify the creator, license the specific uses in writing, agree the credit, agree the edit limits, and keep the paper with the asset. The extra step most brands skip — checking that the product or campaign name itself is clear — is the one that produces the next dispute, because a campaign built on an uncleared brand name invites a different claimant entirely.
License the uses, in writing
Media, territory, term — and the credit format, agreed before delivery.
Pre-approve the edits
A modification schedule with an approval step keeps the integrity right working for both sides.
Keep the credit intact
Attribution survives every format change — check it in the final artwork, not the draft.
Clear the campaign's name too
A conflict search on the campaign or product name closes the other exposure.
Want this handled for your brand?
IP Watch monitors new trademark publications in Nepal and alerts you to potentially conflicting marks — with the context needed to review them.
This article is general information, not legal advice.