Proposal for a Council Decision on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the WIPO Treaty on Audiovisual Performances

With this proposal for a Council Decision the Commission seeks authorisation from the Council to sign, on behalf of the European Union, the WIPO Treaty on Audiovisual Performances adopted in Beijing on 24 June 2012 (hereinafter the "Beijing Treaty"). The Beijing Treaty establishes a set of new international rules which aim at ensuring the adequate protection and remuneration of audiovisual performers, i.e. performers such as actors, musicians or dancers, whose performances are incorporated in an audiovisual work (e.g. a film or a TV programme).

The Treaty is a significant step forward in the international protection of neighbouring rights and the first multilateral instrument adopted in this area since 1996. It delivers a long awaited update of the protection of audiovisual performers at international level and modernizes this protection by recognising performers' rights in the digital environment. In doing so it fills a gap in the protection of performers' rights that had been left open since 1996 when the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (hereinafter WPPT) was adopted.

The WPPT, which the European Union acceded to in 2000, provided for an international protection of the rights of authors and certain holders of related rights that, for the first time, took into account the economic and technological developments of the digital environment. However, no agreement could be reached at that time to include in the scope of these instruments the protection of performers with regard to their performances fixed in audiovisual works (the WPPT only covers the rights of performers in relation to their performances in phonograms).

A Diplomatic Conference was held in Geneva from 7 to 20 December 2000 but WIPO Members could not agree on the text of a new Treaty. The failure of the 2000 Diplomatic Conference suspended the works for more than ten years. In June 2011 the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (22nd session) reached a provisional agreement on the main issue remained unsolved in 2000, the provision on transfer of performers' rights to producers of audiovisual works. Further to that the General Assembly of WIPO decided, at its 40th session in October 2011, to reconvene the Diplomatic Conference that had been suspended in 2000. The reconvened Diplomatic Conference took place in Beijing from 20 to 26 June 2012 and led to the adoption of the Treaty on 24 June 2012.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)109: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:109:FIN

ESO: Background information: Commissioner Michel Barnier welcomes the agreement reached on an international treaty for the protection of artists in the audiovisual sector http://www.europeansources.info/record/memo-commissioner-michel-barnier-welcomes-the-agreement-reached-on-an-international-treaty-for-the-protection-of-artists-in-the-audiovisual-sector/

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