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2011 October 12 - 18 [CIVIL RIGHTS]

Int’l effort to protect performers’ rights as intellectual property

Akahata “morning breeze” column

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in its plenary meeting in late September reportedly decided on convening a diplomatic conference on audio-visual performances in 2012. The scheduled diplomatic conference on this subject will follow the one held in December 2000.

Certain copyrights are granted to actors and other audio-visual performers. However, they are deprived of their rights in some key aspects. They are basically denied their right to refuse to have their film appearances made into DVD movies or distributed on the Internet after they had appeared in the films, or their right to demand remuneration. This is because all their rights are transferred to the producers. Thus, there has been a pressing international task to protect the right of performers, including actors, when images on the Internet can easily be transmitted beyond national borders.

The 2000 conference reached a tentative agreement on all but one of basic proposals contained in 20 articles. The remaining Article 12 concerns the transfer of rights. To comply with the intent of big Hollywood filmmakers, the United States made the proposal that rights should be transferred to producers once actors signed contracts to appear in films, and insisted on the acceptance of this proposal. This proposal was criticized at the conference because it leaves nothing to benefit performers. The European Union (EU) steadfastly opposed the proposal.

It is not yet possible to tell to what extent the scheduled conference will accomplish to solve the remaining problem. However, an international performers’ organization welcomes the agenda, and a forward-looking initiative seems to be under way. It is expected that the conference, after an interval of 12 years, will turn out to be fruitful.