The Rome Convention and developing countries

A large number of the Rome Convention States are developing countries. This is quite natural as most developing countries attach great importance to music, dance and other creations in their national heritage. The value of the Rome Convention for those countries derives from the fact that it provides security to those who contribute to the dissemination of that heritage abroad. The Convention is vital mainly for those countries whose civilization and tradition are oral and where the author is often also the interpreter. The place occupied by the expressions of folklore must be taken into account and the interests of the artists who constantly execute them and, therefore, perpetuate them when their representations are used, must be safeguarded.

Although the possibilities of protecting creations of folklore by copyright appear to be limited and the establishment of a sufficient supplementary type of protection seems to require more time, expressions of folklore can be competently protected indirectly through the protection of interpretations, fixations and their transmissions. By also protecting producers of phonograms, the Rome Convention particularly promotes in developing countries. Such an industry, while ensuring the spread of the national culture within the country and throughout the world, can also constitute a considerable revenue base for the country’s economy.

By giving performers, as well as producers of phonograms, the opportunity to benefit from their performances and productions, the Rome Convention is instrumental in promoting artistic heritage and represents an important incentive for creativity. When the interests of performers and producers of phonograms are protected by law, works will enjoy greater progress and suffer less competition from unprotected performances of foreign works. When performances and phonograms are exported, there is one more reason to protect them globally.

The share played by broadcasters from developing countries should not be forgotten. They also have an interest in protecting their expensive program from retransmission, reproduction and communication to the public of their broadcasts. Broadcasting or receiving television broadcasts in public places can be very lucrative, particularly when the subject of the original broadcast is a prominent event. The organizers of such events only allow broadcasting for certain territories or on the condition that no public reception near the event venue drowns out potential viewers. Therefore, the broadcasting association must be able to prohibit retransmission as well as public reception. The same applies to the broadcasting of performances or recordings of expressions of national folklore. The broadcasting organization should have the global right to prevent the rebroadcasting or fixation for reproduction of its own broadcast of national heritage works.