WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty
(WPPT)
(adopted in Geneva on December 20, 1996)
Preamble
The Contracting Parties,
Desiring to develop and maintain the protection of the rights of performers and producers of phonograms in a manner as effective and uniform as possible,
Recognizing the need to introduce new international rules in order to provide adequate solutions to the questions raised by economic, social, cultural and technological developments,
Recognizing the profound impact of the development and convergence of information and communication technologies on the production and use of performances and phonograms,
Recognizing the need to maintain a balance between the rights of performers and producers of phonograms and the larger public interest, particularly education, research and access to information,
Have agreed as follows:
Chapter I
General Provisions
Article 1
Relation to Other Conventions
(1) Nothing in this Treaty shall derogate from existing obligations that Contracting Parties have to each other under the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations done in Rome, October 26, 1961 (hereinafter the “Rome Convention”).
(2) Protection granted under this Treaty shall leave intact and shall in no way affect the protection of copyright in literary and artistic works. Consequently, no provision of this Treaty may be interpreted as prejudicing such protection.[1]
(3) This Treaty shall not have any connection with, nor shall it prejudice any rights and obligations under, any other treaties.
Article 2
Definitions
For the purposes of this Treaty:
(a) “performers” are actors, singers, musicians, dancers, and other persons who act, sing, deliver, declaim, play in, interpret, or otherwise perform literary or artistic works or expressions of folklore;
(b) “phonogram” means the fixation of the sounds of a performance or of other sounds, or of a representation of sounds, other than in the form of a fixation incorporated in a cinematographic or other audiovisual work;[2]
(c) “fixation” means the embodiment of sounds, or of the representations thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated through a device;
(d) “producer of a phonogram” means the person, or the legal entity, who or which takes the initiative and has the responsibility for the first fixation of the sounds of a performance or other sounds, or the representations of sounds;
(e) “publication” of a fixed performance or a phonogram means the offering of copies of the fixed performance or the phonogram to the public, with the consent of the rightholder, and provided that copies are offered to the public in reasonable quantity;[3]
(f) ”broadcasting” means the transmission by wireless means for public reception of sounds or of images and sounds or of the representations thereof; such transmission by satellite is also “broadcasting”; transmission of encrypted signals is “broadcasting” where the means for decrypting are provided to the public by the broadcasting organization or with its consent;
(g) “communication to the public” of a performance or a phonogram means the transmission to the public by any medium, otherwise than by broadcasting, of sounds of a performance or the sounds or the representations of sounds fixed in a phonogram. For the purposes of Article 15, “communication to the public” includes making the sounds or representations of sounds fixed in a phonogram audible to the public.
Article 3
Beneficiaries of Protection under this Treaty
(1) Contracting Parties shall accord the protection provided under this Treaty to the performers and producers of phonograms who are nationals of other Contracting Parties.
(2) The nationals of other Contracting Parties shall be understood to be those performers or producers of phonograms who would meet the criteria for eligibility for protection provided under the Rome Convention, were all the Contracting Parties to this Treaty Contracting States of that Convention. In respect of these criteria of eligibility, Contracting Parties shall apply the relevant definitions in Article 2 of this Treaty.[4]
(3) Any Contracting Party availing itself of the possibilities provided in Article 5(3) of the Rome Convention or, for the purposes of Article 5 of the same Convention, Article 17 thereof shall make a notification as foreseen in those provisions to the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).[5]
Article 4
National Treatment
(1) Each Contracting Party shall accord to nationals of other Contracting Parties, as defined in Article 3(2), the treatment it accords to its own nationals with regard to the exclusive rights specifically granted in this Treaty, and to the right to equitable remuneration provided for in Article 15 of this Treaty.
(2) The obligation provided for in paragraph (1) does not apply to the extent that another Contracting Party makes use of the reservations permitted by Article 15(3) of this Treaty.
[1]. Agreed statement concerning Article 1(2): It is understood that Article 1(2) clarifies the relationship between
rights in phonograms under this Treaty and copyright in works embodied in the phonograms. In cases where authorization is needed from both the author of a work embodied in the phonogram and a performer or producer owning rights in the phonogram, the need for the authorization of the author does not cease to exist because the authorization of the performer or producer is also required, and vice versa.
It is further understood that nothing in Article 1(2) precludes a Contracting Party from providing exclusive rights to a performer or producer of phonograms beyond those required to be provided under this Treaty.
[2]. Agreed statement concerning Article 2(b): It is understood that the definition of phonogram provided in Article
2(b) does not suggest that rights in the phonogram are in any way affected through their incorporation into a cinematographic or other audiovisual work.
[3]. Agreed statement concerning Articles 2(e), 8, 9, 12, and 13: As used in these Articles, the expressions “copies” and “original and copies,” being subject to the right of distribution and the right of rental under the said Articles, refer exclusively to fixed copies that can be put into circulation as tangible objects.
[4]. Agreed statement concerning Article 3(2): For the application of Article 3(2), it is understood that fixation means the finalization of the master tape (“bande-mère”).
[5]. Agreed statement concerning Article 3: It is understood that the reference in Articles 5(a) and 16(a) (iv) of the Rome Convention to “national of another Contracting State” will, when applied to this Treaty, mean, in regard to an intergovernmental organization that is a Contracting Party to this Treaty, a national of one of the countries that is a member of that organization.
