FIM

A region­al WIPO meet­ing (‘Opportunities and Challenges in the Implementation of the Beijing and Marrakesh Treaties’) took place in Singapore from 27 to 29 April 2015. FIA, FIM, the Spanish col­lect­ing soci­ety AISGE, IFPI and MPA (U.S.) were invit­ed to present the posi­tion of righthold­ers with regard to the Beijing Treaty before forty rep­re­sen­ta­tives from twenty-​five coun­tries of the Asia-​Pacific region (in par­tic­u­lar China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam).

As of the date of the meet­ing, China and Japan were the only two states in the region to have rat­i­fied the Beijing Treaty (Indonesia is con­clud­ing its rat­i­fi­ca­tion instrument).

From dif­fer­ent points of view, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the var­i­ous cat­e­gories of righthold­ers addressed the par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive issues of nation­al treat­ment, rights for broad­cast­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing to the pub­lic and trans­fer of rights. Performers’ organ­i­sa­tions expressed the regret that China had cho­sen not to apply the right to equi­table remu­ner­a­tion pro­vid­ed for under arti­cle 11.3 of the Beijing Treaty (nor that pro­vid­ed for under arti­cle 15.1 of WPPT with regard to per­form­ers) for the right to broad­cast and com­mu­ni­cate to the public.

FIM’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive under­lined the impor­tance of remu­ner­a­tion rights in the light of the unfair con­trac­tu­al prac­tices that pre­vail in the music indus­try and deprive the major­i­ty of artists of any decent rev­enue. The right to equi­table remu­ner­a­tion pro­vid­ed for under arti­cle 12 of the Rome Convention and arti­cle 15 of WPPT is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing fierce attacks from IFPI through­out the world.

It was no sur­prise that IFPI and MPA expressed posi­tions oppos­ing those of FIM and FIA con­cern­ing arti­cles 11 and 12 of the Beijing Treaty. MPA has tak­en a stance in favour of the work for hire sys­tem which it wants to see applied glob­al­ly. As a reminder, this device deprives per­form­ers of their intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights which go to employ­ers. In places where there are no strong unions, this boils down to depriv­ing them pure­ly and sim­ply of any ben­e­fit from such rights.

SCCR President (WIPO Standing Committee for copy­right and relat­ed rights), Martin Moscoso (Peru), who was tak­ing part in the meet­ing at the invi­ta­tion of WIPO, clear­ly indi­cat­ed that, in his eyes, a right to equi­table remu­ner­a­tion for broad­cast­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing to the pub­lic con­sti­tut­ed a bal­anced option.