The Rome Convention and Developing Countries

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A huge number of the States of the Rome Convention are developing countries. This is fairly natural since most developing countries attach great significance to music, dance as well as other creations in their nationwide heritage. The value of the Rome Convention to such countries stems from the fact that it affords security to those who contribute to the dissemination of that heritage abroad. The Convention is chiefly vital to those countries whose civilization and tradition are oral and where the author is often the performer as well. The place occupied by expressions of folklore must be borne in mind and the interests of the artists constantly performing and thus perpetuating them must be safeguarded when use is made of their performances.

Whilst the possibilities of protecting creations of folklore by copyright appear to be limited and the establishment of a supplementary sufficient kind of protection appears to require more time, expressions of folklore can competently be protected indirectly by protecting performances, fixations and broadcasts of them. By also protecting the producers of phonogram the Rome Convention promotes particularly in developing countries. Such an industry while guaranteeing the dissemination of national culture within the country and throughout the world can additionally constitute a considerable basis of revenue for the country’s economy.

By giving performers in addition to phonogram producers the opportunity of benefiting from their performances and productions the Rome Convention is instrumental in promoting the artistic heritage and represents a significant incentive to creativity. Where the interests of performers and producers of phonogram are defended by law, works will enjoy greater progress and suffer less from the competition of unprotected performances of foreign works. Where performances and phonogram are exported, there is one reason more to guard them globally.

The fraction played by the broadcasting organizations in the developing countries should not be forgotten. They also have an interest in the protection of their expensive program against rebroadcasting, reproduction and communication to the public of their broadcasts. The rebroadcasting or reception of television broadcasts in public places can be very lucrative, particularly when the subject of the original broadcast is an outstanding event. The organizers of such events only permit broadcasting for certain territories or on the condition that no public reception close to the place of the event drains away potential spectators. The broadcasting association must therefore be able to forbid rebroadcasting as well as public reception. The same applies to broadcasting of performances or recordings of expressions of national folklore. The broadcasting organization must be entitled globally to avoid rebroadcasting or fixation for reproduction of its own broadcast of works of the national heritage.

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Source by Arif Shahriar

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