Statement by India at WIPO General Assembly 2012 on Agenda 24: Report on the outcome of the Beijing Diplomatic Conference on the Protection of Audiovisual Performances (October 1-9, 2012) Statement by India at WIPO General Assembly 2012 on Agenda 24: Report on the outcome of the Beijing ..
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Statement by India at WIPO General Assembly 2012 on Agenda 24: Report on the outcome of the Beijing Diplomatic Conference on the Protection of Audiovisual Performances (October 1-9, 2012)

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 Mr Chairman,

 

 The Indian delegation would like to congratulate Mr. Francis Gurry, Director General, WIPO and Mr Trevor Clarke, Assistant Director General, WIPO on the successful conclusion of the Diplomatic Conference on Protection of Audio Visual Performances in Beijing this year.

 


Mr. Chairman, the international copyright system has come a long way with the conclusion of the Treaty on Audio Visual Performances. History is witness to the fact that the performers were denied proper protection to them due to various reasons. If the Rome Convention 1961 took away all their rights provided to performers once their performance included in the audiovisual fixations by a cut of provision, the TRIPS Agreement in 1994 failed to give satisfactory protection to them. In 1996 if WPPT was finalized by excluding the Protection of Audiovisual Performances, the Diplomatic Conference in 2000 to adopt a treaty collapsed due to lack of consensus on transfer of rights from performers to the producers of audiovisual fixations.

 


Mr Chairman, when the WIPO General Assembly decided in September 2011 to reconvene the Diplomatic Conference of WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Audiovisual Performances following the decision of the member states in the 22nd SCCR to address an important but a thorny issue pertaining to transfer of rights, we knew very well that the performers have moved from the era darkness to prosperity. It therefore gives us a great satisfaction that after a long wait of eleven years this great event has happened this year in Beijing and we believe that the treaty will certainly take care of the interest of performers in the digital multimedia environment where the boundary between audio and audiovisual fixations is more and more blurred.


This treaty will certainly reinforce the confidence of all stakeholders in the WIPO system including producers of audiovisual performances whose interest has also been taken care of in this new international legal instrument.

 


I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 

 

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