EU legislation

On 27 September, 2011, European Parliament and Council adopted Directive 2011/77/EU amending Directive 2006/116/EC on the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights. The directive draws attention to the importance of the creative contribution of performers and recognizes that this should be reflected in a level of protection.

As performers generally start their careers very young and current legislation does not ensure the protection of their rights for entire lifetime, the Directive extends the term of protection for fixations of performances and for phonograms to 70 years. 

Main changes of the Directive:

• Amendment of Article 1 determining the protection of a musical composition with words for 70 years after the death of the last author of the lyrics or the composer of the musical composition;
• Establishment of different protection for fixation of the performance in a phonogram and not: 70 years from the date of publication for performances recorded in a phonogram and 50 years from that for the fixation otherwise than in a phonogram;
• Protection of rights of the producers extended to 70 years after the fixation is made;
• Ensuring the right for the performer to terminate the contract if, 50 years after the phonogram was published or communicated, the phonogram producer does not offer copies of the phonogram for sale in sufficient quantity or does not make it available to the public otherwise;
• To ensure that performers actually benefit from the extension of protection term, the Directive determines that the performer who has transferred or assigned his exclusive rights to the phonogram producer shall have the right to obtain an annual supplementary remuneration for each full year following the 50th year after the phonogram was published and communicated. The remuneration shall correspond to 20 % of the revenue.

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