Spain

[ES] International Forum on Audiovisual Performances

IRIS 2000-1:1/32

Francisco Javier Cabrera Blázquez

European Audiovisual Observatory

In October 1999, an international forum was held in Madrid on the issue of protection for audiovisual performances. The Forum was organised by Artistas Intérpretes Sociedad de Gestión (AISGE), a Spanish intellectual property rights management association, in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture.

Since December 1996, WIPO has been making efforts to bring about an international consensus regarding the protection of artistic performances fixed on audiovisual media. This work is currently being carried out by the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights with the goal of presenting an international instrument on the protection of audiovisual performances by December 2000 (The next IRIS issue will contain a longer article on this WIPO project as well as EC activities concerning copyright protection of audiovisual works). At the Forum, performing artists and intellectual property experts discussed problems concerning both economic and moral rights in this field.

The Forum resulted in a Manifesto, in which performing artists especially requested that their intellectual property rights be secured at the same level of protection afforded to authors and that they be raised beyond their current status of mere "similar, neighbouring or connected rights". They urged inter alia that regulations be adopted that would conform with the new cultural, economic and technological realities, provide more security and respect for their moral rights and an international guarantee of fair remuneration..

In November 1999, an Observer from the Comité "Actores, Intérpretes" (CSAI) reported on the essence of the Forum's discussion to the WIPO Standing Committee at the occasion of its third session in Geneva.