The creator of a work usually owns the copyright of that work. However, like any form of property, copyright can be bought, sold, inherited or leased. In the case of a book, the author will usually be the rights holder, though they may grant an exclusive licence to the publisher to publish the book. Alternatively, the author may sell their copyright to the publisher. This means that some or all of the economic rights may subsequently belong to someone other than the first owner.
Moral rights are concerned with the protection of the reputation of the creator of a work. In particular the right to be named and recognised as the creator, the right to object to when the work is falsely attributed to someone else, and the right to object to defamatory treatment of the work. Unlike copyright, moral rights cannot be assigned to anyone else - the moral rights accorded to film directors and the authors of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works remain with the author or director (or pass to his or her heirs after death).
