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Musicians! Get Your Neighbouring Rights Royalties

Ensuring that musicians receive their royalties, neighbouring rights protects in three areas: sound recordings, performer’s performances and communication signals.

The protection of performer’s performances was first introduced in 1994, but was last expanded upon on Sept. 1, 1997. Previous to this date, only the composer of the music was paid for public performances and broadcasting, today, the performer has a right to these exposure methods as well.

Public performances would include exposure in public areas like shopping malls or bars, while broadcasting would be the airtime one would receive over the radio. Royalty is owed to the composer, the maker of the sound recording and any performer who performed for that recording in both of these cases.

While the nationality of one performer does not determine one’s eligibility for protection, there are some requirements that the sound recording must meet to be eligible. If the maker is a citizen or permanent resident of Canada or a Rome Convention country, if the maker’s corporation is headquartered in Canada or a Rome Convention country or if all of the fixations for the recording were made in Canada or a Rome Convention country, then the sound recording is eligible for neighbouring rights.

The Web site, www.cb-cda.ga.ca, explains what exactly a Rome Convention country is, “The Act defines a Rome Convention country as a country that is a party to the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, commonly referred to as the ‘Rome Convention’.”

In other words, it’s a group of countries that are in an organized group who help protect the rights of performers, producers and other broadcasters. Canada joined the Rome Convention on March 4, 1998.

There are about 51 countries that are members of the Rome Convention, all of which provide performers the right to royalties when their recordings are performed or broadcast. The amount that radio stations must pay is determined in the Copyright Act while all royalties are divided equally between the performers and record producers.

With private copying becoming all the more popular, the process can affect three different copyrights: copyright in the sound recording, copyright in the music and copyright in the performer’s performance. The creators of the music cannot enforce their copyright due to it being copied privately, nor are they entitled to any royalties.

A new copyright act was enacted on March 19, 1998, permitting for private copying to be exercised, however a levy was introduced to help compensate for the loss that the creator would incur. Manufacturers and importers of blank audio recording media are charged the levy. The Copyright Board determines the amount of the levy, while proceeds go to the composers, lyricists, performers and producers of sound recordings.

At the end of the calendar year of which the performance was first fixed or performed, the performer has the right for copyright for a period of 50 years.

For more information, visit www.mnrr.ca.

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