WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty

 

CHAPTER I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1
Relation to Other Conventions

(1) Nothing in this Treaty shall derogate from existing obligations that
Contracting Parties have to each other under the International Convention for
the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting
Organizations done in Rome, October 26, 1961 (hereinafter the “Rome
Convention”).

(2) Protection granted under this Treaty shall leave intact and shall in no
way affect the protection of copyright in literary and artistic works.
Consequently, no provision of this Treaty may be interpreted as prejudicing such
protection.

(3) This Treaty shall not have any connection with, nor shall it prejudice
any rights and obligations under, any other treaties.

Article 2
Definitions

For the purposes of this Treaty:

(a) “performers”are actors, singers, musicians, dancers, and other persons
who act, sing, deliver, declaim, play in, interpret, or otherwise perform
literary or artistic works or expressions of folklore;

(b) “phonogram”means the fixation of the sounds of a performance or of other
sounds, or of a representation of sounds, other than in the form of a fixation
incorporated in a cinematographic or other audiovisual work;

(c) “fixation”means the embodiment of sounds, or of the representations
thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated through a
device;

(d) “producer of a phonogram”means the person, or the legal entity, who or
which takes the initiative and has the responsibility for the first fixation of
the sounds of a performance or other sounds, or the representations of sounds;

(e) “publication”of a fixed performance or a phonogram means the offering of
copies of the fixed performance or the phonogram to the public, with theconsent of the rightholder, and provided that copies are offered to the public
in reasonable quantity;

(f) “broadcasting”means the transmission by wireless means for
public reception of sounds or of images and sounds or of the representations
thereof; such transmission by satellite is also “broadcasting”; transmission of
encrypted signals is “broadcasting”where the means for decrypting are provided
to the public by the broadcasting organization or with its consent;

(g) “communication to the public”of a performance or a phonogram means the
transmission to the public by any medium, otherwise than by broadcasting, of
sounds of a performance or the sounds or the representations of sounds fixed in
a phonogram. For the purposes of Article 15, “communication to the public”
includes making the sounds or representations of sounds fixed in a phonogram
audible to the public.

Article 3
Beneficiaries of Protection under this Treaty

(1) Contracting Parties shall accord the protection provided under this
Treaty to the performers and producers of phonograms who are nationals of other
Contracting Parties.

(2) The nationals of other Contracting Parties shall be understood to be
those performers or producers of phonograms who would meet the criteria for
eligibility for protection provided under the Rome Convention, were all the
Contracting Parties to this Treaty Contracting States of that Convention. In
respect of these criteria of eligibility, Contracting Parties shall apply the
relevant definitions in Article 2 of this Treaty.

(3) Any Contracting Party availing itself of the possibilities provided in
Article 5(3) of the Rome Convention or, for the purposes of Article 5 of the
same Convention, Article 17 thereof shall make a notification as foreseen in
those provisions to the Director General of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO).

Article 4
National Treatment

(1) Each Contracting Party shall accord to nationals of other Contracting
Parties, as defined in Article 3(2), the treatment it accords to its own
nationals with regard to the exclusive rights specifically granted in this
Treaty, and to the right to equitable remuneration provided for in Article 15 of
this Treaty.

(2) The obligation provided for in paragraph (1) does not apply to the extent
that another Contracting Party makes use of the reservations permitted by
Article 15(3) of this Treaty.

CHAPTER II

RIGHTS OF PERFORMERS
Article 5
Moral Rights of Performers

(1) Independently of a performer’s economic rights, and even after the
transfer of those rights, the performer shall, as regards his live aural
performances or performances fixed in phonograms, have the right to claim to be
identified as the performer of his performances, except where omission is
dictated by the manner of the use of the performance, and to object to any
distortion, mutilation or other modification of his performances that would be
prejudicial to his reputation.

(2) The rights granted to a performer in accordance with paragraph (1) shall,
after his death, be maintained, at least until the expiry of the economic
rights, and shall be exercisable by the persons or institutions authorized by
the legislation of the Contracting Party where protection is claimed. However,
those Contracting Parties whose legislation, at the moment of their ratification
of or accession to this Treaty, does not provide for protection after the death
of the performer of all rights set out in the preceding paragraph may provide
that some of these rights will, after his death, cease to be maintained.

(3) The means of redress for safeguarding the rights granted under this
Article shall be governed by the legislation of the Contracting Party where
protection is claimed.

Article 6
Economic Rights of Performers in their Unfixed Performances

Performers shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing, as regards their
performances:

(i) the broadcasting and communication to the public of their unfixed
performances except where the performance is already a broadcast performance;
and

(ii) the fixation of their unfixed performances.

Article 7
Right of Reproduction

Performers shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing the direct or
indirect reproduction of their performances fixed in phonograms, in any manneror form.

Article 8
Right of Distribution

(1) Performers shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing the making
available to the public of the original and copies of their performances fixed
in phonograms through sale or other transfer of ownership.
(2) Nothing in this Treaty shall affect the freedom of Contracting Parties to
determine the conditions, if any, under which the exhaustion of the right in
paragraph (1) applies after the first sale or other transfer of ownership of the
original or a copy of the fixed performance with the authorization of the
performer.

 

Author: international

Mentioned in these Entries

International copyright1, List of international public law topics, Trade and Commercial Relations conventions.