Newsletter
Copyright Disputes over Moral Rights
I. Moral Rights and Exceptions
The forepart of Paragraph 1, Article 16 of the Copyright Act expressly provides for the moral rights: "The author shall have the right to indicate his or her real name, pseudonym, or to remain anonymous on the original or any reproduction of the work, or at the time of public release of the work." However, Paragraph 4 of the same Article sets forth an exception: "Where, in light of the purpose and manner of exploitation of the work, there is no likelihood of prejudice to the interests of the author and such omission does not contravene social usage, the name or appellation of the author may be omitted." Whether a specific instance meets the requirement of "not contravening social usage" as referred to above shall be determined by the judicial authorities based on the evidence investigated in each case.
The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court's Civil Judgment 114-Min-Zhu-Su-Zi No. 52 dated April 15, 2026 held that it has not yet become a social custom for authorized music platforms to indicate the names of lyricists and composers of songs. Therefore, in such circumstances, omitting the author's name complies with Paragraph 4, Article 16 of the Copyright Act.
II. Facts of the Case
In this case, the plaintiff is the author of the lyrics for the disputed songs 1 and 2. The defendant company is an operator of a music platform, which has obtained a license from the Music Copyright Society of Chinese Taipei (MÜST), and has uploaded the lyrics to a music streaming platform for users to listen to or download as mobile phone ringtones. However, the defendant company incorrectly indicated a third party as the lyricist for song 1. In addition, the defendant company failed to identify the plaintiff as the lyricist for song 2. The plaintiff thus filed this lawsuit, claiming that the defendant company negligently infringed its moral rights.
III. The Grounds for Judgement
1. The defendant company's incorrect indication of the author's name for song 1 on the music platform constitutes an infringement of the plaintiff's moral rights; however, the defendant company did not act intentionally or negligently and is therefore not liable for damages:
The defendant company's incorrect indication of the author's name for song 1 on the music platform constitutes an infringement of the plaintiff's moral rights. However, the defendant company used a file conversion and upload mechanism for data exchange. As the publisher marking rights clearance in the file, and then the system automatically setting the song as available for upload after conversion and verification. Under these circumstances, the court found that the defendant company reasonably relied in good faith on the accuracy of the publisher's information and had exercised reasonable duty of care within its capacity, and thus did not act intentionally or negligently.
2. The defendant company's failure to indicate the plaintiff as the author of song 2 on the music platform did not infringe the plaintiff's moral rights:
The court found that the defendant company had paid the license fee to MÜST as agreed, and the license agreement between the parties did not require the indication of the lyricist or composer's name during public transmission. Therefore, the defendant company did not harm the plaintiff's interest in receiving license fees.
Furthermore, other music platforms on the market also do not always indicate the names of lyricists and composers, indicating that it has not yet become a social custom for music platform operators who have obtained the right of public transmission through a license agreement to indicate the names of lyricists and composers on songs. Accordingly, the court held that the defendant company did not infringe the plaintiff's moral rights.
IV. Conclusion
In summary, the above judgment shows that the incorrect indication of the author's name during the exploitation of a work may constitute an infringement of the moral rights, but liability for damages arises only if the user acted intentionally or negligently. As for the omission of the author's name, if it does not violate the social custom, it does not constitute infringement.
Although Paragraph 4, Article 16 of the Copyright Act provides an exception to the moral rights, the determination of "social custom" is still made by the judiciary based on the circumstances of each case, and there is no clear and unified standard. Therefore, it is recommended that users of copyrighted works carefully verify whether the author's names are indicated and accurate when exploiting works, in order to reduce potential copyright infringement risks.