Chronicle EditorAleck Ncube
ARTS are an important industry. It is important for visual artists, authors, sculptors and musicians to understand the role of Copyrights and its related rights in enhancing their operations. In this article, I explain the concept of related rights and collective management and introduce its main features.
What is protection of related rights?
Related rights are the rights that belong to the performers, the producers of phonograms and broadcasting organisations in relation to their performances, phonograms and broadcasts respectively.
Related rights differ from copyright in that they belong to owners regarded as intermediaries in the production, recording or diffusion of works.
The link with copyright is due to the fact that the three categories of related rights owners are auxiliaries in the intellectual creation process since they lend their assistance to authors in the communication of the latter’s works to the public.
A musician performs a musical work written by a composer; an actor performs a role in a play written by a playwright; producers of phonograms — or more commonly “the record industry” — record and produce songs and music written by authors and composers, played by musicians or sung by performers; broadcasting organisations broadcast works and phonograms on their stations.
At the international level, related rights are conferred by the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations, better known as the “Rome Convention”.
This Convention was adopted in 1961 and has not been revised since. It is jointly administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
What is collective management of copyright and related rights?
It has been mentioned that the creator of a work has the right to allow or to prohibit the use of his works; a playwright can consent to his work being performed on stage under certain agreed conditions; a writer can negotiate a contract with a publisher for the publication and distribution of a book; and a composer or a musician can agree to have his music or performance recorded on compact disc. These examples illustrate how the owners of the rights can exercise their rights in person.
An author is not materially capable of monitoring all uses of his works; he cannot for instance contact every single radio or television station to negotiate licenses and remuneration for the use of his works.
Conversely, it is not practical for a broadcasting organisation to seek specific permission from every author for the use of every copyrighted work. The very impracticality of managing these activities individually, both for the owner of rights and for the user, creates a need for collective management organisations, whose role is to bridge the gap between them in these key areas, among others.
Collective management is the exercise of copyright and related rights by organisations acting in the interest and on behalf of the owners of rights. For Musicians in Zimbabwe there is the Zimbabwe Music Rights (ZIMURA).
There is a challenge with the collective management of copyrights for authors at present in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Copyright Organisation (ZimCopy) is not operational.
Why is collective management of copyright and related rights necessary?
Composers, writers, musicians, singers, performers and other talented individuals are among society’s most valuable assets. The fabric of our cultural lives is enriched by their creative genius. In order to develop their talent and encourage them to create, we have to give those individuals incentives, namely remuneration in return for permission to make use of their works.
Collective management organisations are an important link between creators and users of copyrighted works (such as radio stations) because they ensure that, as owners of rights, creators receive payment for the use of their works.
What are the commonest types of right under Collective management?
Collective management organisations most commonly take care of the following rights:
The right of public performance (music played or performed in discotheques, restaurants, and other public places);
The right of broadcasting (live and recorded performances on radio and television);
The mechanical reproduction rights in musical works (the reproduction of works in CDs, tapes, vinyl records, cassettes, mini-discs, or other forms of recordings);
The performing rights in dramatic works (theatre plays);
The right of reprographic reproduction of literary and musical works (photocopying);
Related rights (the rights of performers and producers of phonograms to obtain remuneration for broadcasting or the communication to the public of phonograms).
How does collective management work?
There are various kinds of collective management organisation or groups of such organisations, depending on the category of works involved (music, dramatic works, “multimedia” productions, etc.) that will collectively manage different kinds of right.
In the field of musical works (encompassing all types of music, modern, jazz, classical, symphonic, blues and pop whether instrumental or vocal), documentation, licensing and distribution are the three pillars on which the collective management of the rights of public performance and broadcasting is based.
The collective management organisation negotiates with users (such as radio stations, broadcasters, discotheques, cinemas, restaurants and the like), or groups of users and authorises them to use copyrighted works from its repertoire against payment and on certain conditions.
On the basis of its documentation (information on members and their works) and the programmes submitted by users (for instance, logs of music played on the radio), the collective management organisation distributes copyright royalties to its members according to established distribution rules.
The fees actually paid to the copyright owners correspond to the use of the works and are accompanied by a breakdown of that use.
In the field of dramatic works (which includes scripts, screenplays, mime shows, ballets, theatre plays, operas and musicals), the practice of collective management is rather different in that the collective management organisation acts as an agent representing authors.
It negotiates a general contract with the organisations representing theatres in which the minimum terms are specified for the exploitation of particular works.
The performance of each play then requires further authorisation from the author, which takes the form of an individual contract setting out the author’s specific conditions.
The collective management organisation then announces that permission has been given by the author concerned and collects the corresponding remuneration.
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