A treaty for strengthening the rights of Performers and Actors: Beijing Treaty Enters into Force on April 28, 2020

The Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances (Beijing Treaty or BTAP) deals with the intellectual property rights of performers in audiovisual performances. Given the nature of the industry, a lot of actors in our favourite series and movies work on contractual agreements wherein they transfer all their rights to the producer of the audiovisual fixation of the performance for a lump sum amount of money without a claim for equity stakes or royalty rights for the otherwise use of the performance.  The Beijing Treaty helps give these performers more rights to their work, which in turn boosts their personal revenues. This treaty makes an attempt to provide protection to the work of the performers/actors at par with the lyricists, music composers and producers. The treaty also considers the impact of digitization on the rights and makes required provisions accordingly.

Main provisions of the Treaty are available at https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_beijing_flyer.pdf

P.S.: India is not a contracting state to the above-mentioned treaty. However, the Indian copyright law does provide for the moral and economic rights for the performers. [Sec 38, 38A, 38B and 39 of the Copyright Act of 1957.]

About Charu Srivastava 9 Articles
Good day everyone!!! I am a faculty at School of Law, UPES [Dehradun] possess close to 6 years of academic experience, also a PH.D. Scholar at GNLU, Gandhinagar. I hold a Master degree in Business Laws from National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Passionate about Intellectual Property Rights particularly Law of Copyrights, Trademark, Geographical Indication and Traditional Knowledge. Aspires to contribute thoughtful posts on IP ranging from its creation to enforcement to cater to the vast category of readers involving artists, lawyers, academia or any layperson having no knowledge of IP. On a lighter note, Alas, I am not Adventurous or a traveller but have an interest in singing, playing guitar and cooking little bit.

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