The 1961 Rome Convention granted performers in audiovisual works such as feature films, videos and television dramas rights against unauthorised broadcasts or recordings of their performances. Under the Convention, and in contrast to performers in sound-only recordings (CDs, MP3 files etc.), once performers in audiovisual works have consented to the initial recording of their performance they do not have any rights over its use. However, a number of countries do have domestic legislation that grants certain rights to performers in audiovisual works, including the right to be paid when these works are copied, distributed or broadcast.
Order no. 2021-580 of 12 May 2021 (‘transposition Order’) of the French Government implements articles 2(6) and 17 to 23 of the EU Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (‘CDSM’). In a ruling of 15 November 2022, the French administrative Supreme Court annulled the transposition Order to the extent that it does…
Introduction When we launched the Copyright Evidence Portal, our ambition was no less than to create a catalogue of all existing empirical studies about copyright. This ambition, and the resulting huge body of work (over 850 studies), inspired us to think about new ways to interpret this empirical literature, and to offer a state-of-the-art overview…
In the midst of the economic and social paralysis arising from the COVID 19 pandemic, the tireless discipline of law has prevailed as always, if anything with increased activity. The Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances (BTAP, hereinafter the “Treaty”) came into force on 28 April 2020 in the first thirty contracting parties (the minimum number…
Introduction In a decision from 12 September 2018, the French Court of Cassation (hereafter: “the Court”) defines the notion of fixation of the performance of a performer in order to determine the date of such fixation for several works. This decision is particularly interesting as it deals with an issue that has mostly been disregarded…
In an article recently published in the JIPITEC (and available here), I examined parts of the ongoing copyright reform process drawing on a case study on the Fair Internet for Performers Campaign. This process has been characterised by strong discourses centred on ‘fairness’. Using discourse analysis, I found the concept of fairness to be mostly…
Almost seven years ago, Directive 2011/77/EU – also called the Term Extension Directive – was passed. As mentioned in the Impact Assessment that accompanied the Proposal for the Directive, its general objective was to promote music production in the EU. The Impact Assessment also referred to specific objectives, which included contributing to enhancing the welfare…
The Supreme Court confirmed that performing artists (performers) have a mandatory right to equitable remuneration from broadcasters or movie producers as consideration for the statutory assignment of most of their rights to broadcasters and producers. Moreover, the Court declared that in award calculation two methods of fixing the amount of remuneration are possible: either as…
The bizarre saga known as Garcia v. Google has finally come to end with an eleven judge en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Garcia v. Google, Inc., 786 F.3d 733 (9th Cir. 2015)). That holding came in response to a remarkable, if not astonishing holding by a…
“The Supreme Court considers that the participants in the reality TV program had no role to play and that there was no text. They were simply asked to be themselves and express their reactions to the situations they faced. The artificial nature of these situations was not enough to give them the quality of actors.”…
11 years have passed since the last attempt of WIPO to promote an Audiovisual Performance Treaty which would bring the performer’s protection to meet the challenges of the digital era. The path to the adoption of such a Treaty seems to be prima facie open after the WIPO’s General Assembly Decision of 30th of September…
