Intellectual property: Related rights (or neighboring rights in copyright law)(Part 2 of 2)

International protection of related rights.

Apart from the Rome convention, a number of other treaties address the protection of related rights:

 Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms (Geneva Phonograms Convention, 1971).

Convention Relating to the Distribution of Program–Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite (Brussels Convention, 1974).

Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Integrated Circuits (IPIC Treaty, 1989).

 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS, 1994).

WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT, 1996).

Apart from the TRIPS Agreement, these treaties cannot truly be described as global: the Rome Convention had 83 signatories as of 2006, compared with 162 for the Berne Convention.

Relation to authors' rights.

Related rights are independent of any authors' rights, as is made clear in the various treaties. Hence a CD recording of a song is concurrently protected by four copyright-type rights:

Authors' rights of the composer of the music.

Authors' rights of the lyricist.

Performers' rights of the singer and musicians.

Producers' rights of the person or corporation that made the recording.

Performers.

The protection of performers is perhaps the strongest and most unified of the related rights. A performer (musician, actor, etc.) has an intellectual input in their performance over and above that of the author of the work. As such, many countries grant moral rights to performers as well as the economic rights covered by the Rome Convention (articles. 7–9), and the rights of paternity and integrity are required by the WPPT (article 5).

Performers' rights should not be confused with performing rights, which are the royalties due to the composer for a piece of music under copyright in return for the license (permission) to perform the piece in public. In other words, performers must pay performing rights to composers. Under the Rome Convention (article 7), performers have the right to prevent:

The broadcast or communication to the public of their performance, unless this is made from a legally published recording of the performance.

The fixation (recording) of their performance.

The reproduction of a recording of their performance.

The WPPT extends these rights to include the right to license:

The distribution of recordings of their performance, for sale or other transfer of ownership (Article 8).

The rental of recordings of their performances, unless there is a compulsory license scheme in operation (Article 9).

The "making available to the public" of their performances (Article 10), in effect their publication on the internet.

Article 14 of the Rome Convention set a minimum term for the protection of performers' rights of twenty years from the end of the year in which the performance was made: the TRIPS Agreement (Article 14.5) has extended this to fifty years. In the European Union, performers' rights last for fifty years from the end of the year of the performance, unless a recording of the performance was published in which case they last for fifty years from the end of the year of publication (Article 3(100 }.

In the United States, there is no federal statutory right in unfixed works such as performances, and no federal exclusive right to record a performance; some states, notably California, have performer rights laws, but as of 1988 these remain untested.