The treaty aims to protect musicians and the recording industry
from the threat of piracy posed by the internet and other digital
technology. A related treaty, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, will enter
into force on 6th March 2002. Entry into force for each treaty
comes three months after its 30th ratification or accession has
been received by WIPO.
The Performances and Phonograms Treaty protects performing
artists, such as singers and musicians, and record companies. The
Copyright Treaty protects other categories of creators such as
composers, artists and writers and companies in the culture and
information industries.
The Performances and Phonograms Treaty improves the protection
of performing artists and producers by providing the legal basis to
prevent unauthorised exploitation of their performances, whether
live or recorded, or phonograms, on digital networks. It gives them
exclusive rights for reproduction, distribution, commercial rental
and making their performances and phonograms available to the
public on the internet.
For the first time, the moral rights of performers will be
recognised at the international level. The Performances and
Phonograms Treaty includes the moral rights of attribution and
integrity for sound performances. They are given the right to be
identified as performers and to object under certain conditions to
distortions, mutilations or other prejudicial modifications of
their performances, for example through digital manipulation.
The Performances and Phonograms Treaty also sets up an
international framework for possible payments to performing artists
and producers of phonograms for broadcasting and other forms of
communication to the public of commercial phonograms. Like the
Copyright Treaty, the Performances and Phonograms Treaty contains
provisions on technical measures for identifying and managing
protected performances and sound recordings. It also provides
protection against unauthorised reproduction, distribution and
rental of recorded music.
The two treaties update and improve the international protection
which was established prior to the development and widespread use
of PCs and the internet. The Copyright Treaty updates and
supplements the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works, the major international copyright treaty in the
world today which was originally adopted in 1886, and most recently
revised in 1971.
The Performances and Phonograms Treaty updates and supplements
the existing major related rights treaty, the Rome Convention for
the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and
Broadcasting Organizations (adopted in 1961).
The treaties also break new ground by ensuring that rightholders
can effectively use technology to protect their rights and to
license their works on-line. An anti-circumvention provision
requires countries to provide legal protection and effective
remedies against the circumvention of technological measures, such
as encryption. They also require countries to prohibit the
deliberate alteration or deletion of electronic rights management
information - that is, information that identifies a work,
performance, or phonogram, or its author, performer or owner, or
the terms and conditions for its use.
Both treaties also contain provisions on rights of distribution
and rental, an obligation for countries to provide adequate and
effective enforcement measures and optional rights to be
remunerated for certain forms of broadcasting or communication to
the public.
