'Moral rights' are certain legal rights under the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act. They include

• The right to be identified as the author, eg byline credit
• The rght to object to derogatory treatment of a work (but only, curiously, where the author has been identified)
• The right not to have work falsely attributed, ie someone else's work appear with your byline
• The subject has a right to privacy in certain photographs, eg photos taken for private or domestic purposes may not be distributed, published, broadcast or exhibited to the public without consent. This includes weddings, private portraits etc.

There are very significant limitations to the rights to be identified as the author and to object to derogatory treatment of work:

• Moral rights do not apply to photos made for the purpose of reporting current events. Whilst news is clearly exempt of moral rights, almost any journalistic photography may be ineligible. This get-out clause and the following one were late additions to the legislation c/o lobbying by newspaper and magazine publishers - the very areas where these rights would be most significant.
• Moral rights do not apply to work published in newspapers or magazines
• Where they may apply, they must be asserted to do so by the author, usually by means of a statement such as 'Full moral rights are asserted by the author in accordance with the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act', or even 'Byline obligatory'.
• Moral rights may be waived (in writing) but cannot be assigned to another party. Rights-grabbing clients often insist on a waiver so even the right to a byline is lost.
• There are limited legal sanctions for violating moral rights. A complainant may apply to the court for an injunction to prevent violation, but there are no penalties available for failing to print a byline. However photographers own terms of supply can stipulate penalties that are enforceable as contract conditions.