Re: Needletime / Pay for Play

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Mike Holderness <mch[_at_]cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, Bradley Silver <bradleys[_at_]wwb.co.za> wrote:
> >
> > How has the performance right in a sound recording (needletime)
> > come to include performers' rights to receive a percentage of the
> > appropriate royalty for the broadcast of the sound recording?
>
> Surely because in the _droit d'auteur_ tradition -- which is, after
> all, the mainstream -- artists, including performers, have
> *inalienable* rights in their work.

To start, distinguish between (a) the author's right in his or her work, (b) the performer's right in his or her performance, and (c) the producer's right in its recording. To illustrate, consider a Beethoven sonata: Beethoven cannot assert his rights any more, but the pianist and record company can assert theirs in their (recent) recording. For their rights in broadcasting, see the Rome Convention, art. 12. Do not get confused by the nomenclature or the alienability issues.

     Paul Geller <http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pgeller/>
     <pgeller[_at_]law.usc.edu>