Included in the Visual Artists Rights Act is a directive stating that studies must be conducted by Congress to assess the impact of the waiver clause of the act.  This reading is from the United States Copyright Office and it is a summary of the VARA and its significance.  It also assesses its impact on copyright in the United States.  The studies assess whether the state statutes and regulations of moral rights really should be applied where they are designated.  The moral rights in other countries are touched upon, so as to compare to the United States law.  Since the Berne Convention, other nations have become more concerned with preserving the relationship of the author with his or her work.  Interestingly, in the United States, although moral rights were not a part of the federal copyright law prior to the VARA, some states (through various court cases) have enacted moral rights laws.  Such cases as Carter v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc are described to show how moral rights have been incorporated since VARA.  The US Copyright Office also issued a survey that was disseminated to art related organizations. The purpose was to figure out what they knew about VARA, whether artists had been asked to waive their rights, and it sought to determine the impact of VARA, directly from the source.  

This examination by the US Copyright Office is fairly extensive, and provides evidence to show that including moral rights into federal law in the United States is faced with doubts.  This reading shows that after laws are passed they do not just become part of the legislative circulation and then forgotten, but that they are consequently studied and questioned.  This shows the progressive nature of the legislation process.  Specifically with regards to VARA, the fact that required studies were part of the act shows that doubts were in place before its passage.  Including moral rights of any kind in United States Copyright Law was not done before this act was passed, so no one knew how this would turn out.  Because VARA is also a new type of legislation, the fact that this article highlights that many who could be protected by VARA do not know about it, shows that more information needs to be disseminated to the public regarding new legislation.