Rome Convention provisions

The Rome Convention

The technological progress and the invention of devices, such as tape recorders, allowed creative works to be circumvented by easily and cheap reproduced units. Along with this technological progress arose the need to protect the performers and producers of recordings.

However, the 1886 Berne Convention, that regulated the circulation of printed materials, couldn’t respond to this new need. Addressing this need, the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (Rome Convention) was concluded. It extended copyright protection from the author of a work to the creators and owners of particular, physical manifestations of intellectual property, such as audiocassettes and DVDs.

The Rome Convention was concluded by members of the WIPO on October 26, 1961. Note that WIPO is responsible, jointly with the ILO and UNESCO, for the administration of the Rome Convention.

As to the content of the Rome Convention, it secures protection in performances of performers, phonograms of producers of phonograms and broadcasts of broadcasting organizations. However, once a performer has consented to the incorporation of her performance in a visual or audiovisual fixation, the provisions on performers’ rights have no further application. Furthermore, the Rome Convention allows certain exceptions in national laws to the rights of performers, producer of phonographs and broadcasting organizations; one of these exceptions is the use of a work for the purpose of teaching or scientific research.

86 countries have signed the Rome Convention so far. For a list of the contracting parties to the Rome Convention you can visit the link: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?lang=en&treaty_id=17

As regards accession to the Rome Convention, it is open to States party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works or to the Universal Copyright Convention. States that access to the treaty may make reservations with regard to the application of certain provisions. This has as a result that acceding countries can avoid the application of rules that would require important changes of their national law.