Right of Integrity Court actions related to the right of integrity have been rare. This reflects the extreme difficulty experienced by creators in utilizing current legislation to defend the integrity of theirwork. We anticipate this will become clear when the SubCommittee incorporates the experience of creators in their final recommendations. The problem facing creators today is that granting a right to reproduce can result in the reproduction of a grossly changed version of their work. The difficulty of demonstrating prejudice of reputation has resulted because the courts are a poor vehicle to judge the merit or notoriety of an artist.
Creators are concerned about modification of their images.
With the introduction of digital technology and the fact that each copy is equivalent to original, the creator may be faced with a 1000 different modifications to the integrity of a work bya 1000 different infringers. In the schoolroom game of passing a message verbally from person to person, we learn that the message becomes garbled and distorted beyond recognition. The same will be true of digital works as each copy is both an original and a potentially altered copy. Although preservation of the history of art is another valid reason for the right of integrity, copyright is time limited and becomes of no effect on the majority of works which constitute art history. The true spirit of the 1988 amendment is that the artist's message be preserved.