A few days ago I discovered that one of my stories, for nearly four years already on the web, has been published on a paying site, without my authorisation and with someone else’s ownership. I immediately took care of informing the site webmaster and he corrected the authorship, but he does not want to publish a note in the home page to warn he readers of the mistake and of the correction made. Can I impose it on him by law to defend my moral rights?

This incident is rather unpleasant and it seems to me that the Webmaster has exceeded in his behaviour. A story, mainly as this was already published on the Web, benefits from the protection provided by the law on copyright that recognizes the author both a moral and financial right of the work exploitation. As a consequence, the Webmaster could not have reproduced and published the story on his site and, over this, allow the reading only upon a payment, as to do all of this he would have had to ask the authorisation of the author. The fact that he only changed the author’s name, upon a request to do this, is a small thing, as the author has the possibility of requesting the cancellation of the publication and also of any proofs that this has been published for a period without the authorisation, but it is possible to ask for damage compensation too. From a practical point of view, the best thing to do is to contact the Webmaster, bringing to his attention the fact that he did not behave in a correct manner and inviting him to publish the correction. On the contrary, and if it is only the correction that interests you, an evaluation needs to be done about the context in which the story has been inserted. If it is a magazine, the correction is a true and proper obligation of the publishing editor, and if he does not comply, a judge can order it to him.