Moral rights of the artist
You sell a work. Two years later it is on a book cover, cropped to half, with a block of text across the face and no name.
The work is no longer yours. You may have assigned your copyright. You still have something, and those are your moral rights: rights attached to you as maker that do not travel with the canvas.
This page sets out the position under Dutch law.
Four moral rights that stay with the maker
Article 25 of the Dutch Copyright Act gives the maker four rights, and you keep them even after assigning your copyright.
The first is the right to object to publication without your name being stated, unless that objection would be contrary to reasonableness.
The second concerns identification: publication under a name other than yours, or a change to the title of the work or to the way the maker is named.
The third is broader. You can object to any other alteration of the work, unless the objection would, given the nature of the alteration, be contrary to reasonableness.
The fourth is the heaviest: objection to any distortion, mutilation or other impairment of the work that could harm your honour or reputation, or your standing as a maker.
Which moral rights can be waived and which cannot
This is where contracts usually go wrong. Many commissioning agreements contain a line along the lines of “the maker waives all moral rights”. Such a clause works only in part.
The right to attribution can be waived. The rights concerning alterations can be waived to the extent that they concern changes to the work or to its title. The right to act against distortion, mutilation or impairment cannot be waived. It is not in the statutory list, so it stays.
For you as a maker that means the broad waiver is less final than it looks. For a commissioning party it means do not count on such a clause, because the part that really matters is not covered by it.
More about artist contracts with a gallery →
When an alteration of an artwork becomes an impairment
The threshold is not whether you find it ugly. In 2019 the Dutch Supreme Court held that the risk of reputational harm is a separate requirement for any reliance on the right against impairment, including where the case concerns distortion or mutilation. Once that threshold is met, no further balancing of interests follows: the reputational harm test already contains that balance.
With buildings the reason for the intervention carries considerable weight, and that reason is often a change of function. With free work it lies differently, because a painting has no function that changes.
In 2017 the District Court of The Hague held, in the case about the rebuilding of Naturalis, that the intervention impaired the architect’s work, and that the provision, as an implementation of the Berne Convention, leaves no room for an additional balancing of interests.
The practical translation: gather what the impairment does to how your work is seen. Reviews, trade publications, responses from peers, and images from before and after. Without that it stays an opinion.
Destroying an artwork is not the same as mutilating it
A work that disappears entirely falls outside this article. In 2004 the Supreme Court held that the total destruction of the object in which a work is embodied is not an impairment within the meaning of the Act.
That does not mean an owner may do anything. Where the work is unique, the owner may be expected to have a sound reason and to document the work, or to give the maker the opportunity to do so. If that is skipped, the discussion moves to abuse of rights and tort.
More about removal and destruction in practice →
Attribution beside your work, online as well
The right to attribution is the one most often breached and least often invoked. A wall label without a name, a museum website without a credit, a social post naming only the institution.
Make it concrete in your agreements. Record how your name is stated, where it appears, and that the credit travels with the image when it is passed to third parties, press images included. For digital use, ask for your name in the file metadata.
And the reverse. If your work has been impaired and you cannot get it restored, removing your name is sometimes the better outcome. That is a negotiation rather than an automatic right, but it is a real option.
Moral rights after the maker’s death
Moral rights do not end on death. They pass to the person the maker appointed by will, and run until copyright expires.
Since 1 January 2026 the Act strengthening copyright contract law has added to this. Where nobody has been appointed, the rights pass to the surviving relatives. The Act limits that circle to the parents, the spouse or registered partner and the children, and each of them can act independently.
The reason for the change is current: holograms and deepfakes of deceased makers and performers. For an estate containing work, that is a reason to settle this expressly, because without an appointment several family members can act separately from one another.
More about inheriting and bequeathing art →
Injunction, restoration or damages: what you can claim when your artwork is impaired
Three things, in rising order of difficulty. An injunction against further publication of the impaired version is the most attainable. Restoration to the original state is possible, but only where that is still feasible and not disproportionately expensive.
Damages are the hardest. In a 2021 case about a removed artwork, the court rejected the damages claim because the loss had not been made plausible. So support it with figures where you can: lost commissions, a lower price level, a cancelled exhibition.
Get in touch with Jaap Versteeg
Has your work been altered, cropped, painted over or published without your name? Or is there a contract in which you waive your rights? Get in touch with Jaap Versteeg. Call 020 675 88 21 or email him for an initial consultation.
