Ju­nior Na­gas­sar

Stu­dent, Hugh Wood­ing Law School

Who is a per­former?

A per­former is de­fined as a singer, mu­si­cian, or a per­son who sings, de­liv­ers, ren­ders, plays in, or oth­er­wise per­forms lit­er­ary and artis­tic works.

Acts re­quir­ing au­tho­ri­sa­tion­by per­former

It is an in­fringe­ment of a per­former's right to do any of the fol­low­ing acts in re­la­tion to his/her per­for­mance with­out the con­sent or au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the per­former:

�2 broad­cast or com­mu­ni­cate to the pub­lic his per­for­mance;

�2 record a live per­for­mance;

�2 re­pro­duce it;

�2 dis­trib­ute it to the pub­lic;

�2 sell or trans­fer it;

�2 rent it to the pub­lic; or

�2 make it avail­able to the pub­lic through an elec­tron­ic re­trieval sys­tem, eg In­ter­net.

Right to en­ter in­to con­tract

Un­der sec­tion 21 (3) of the Copy­right Act Chap 82:80, per­form­ers are, how­ev­er, free to en­ter con­tracts on terms and con­di­tions which are more favourable to them in re­la­tion to their per­for­mances.

Eq­ui­table re­mu­ner­a­tion

Once a sound record­ing of a per­for­mance is pub­lished for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es, or is re­pro­duced di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly for broad­cast­ing or com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the pub­lic, or is pub­licly per­formed, a sin­gle eq­ui­table sum shall be paid to the per­former by the pro­duc­er. Un­less oth­er­wise agreed, half of the amount re­ceived by the pro­duc­er shall be paid to the per­former.

Lim­i­ta­tions on pro­tec­tion

No per­mis­sion or au­tho­ri­sa­tion is re­quired if it can be shown that the work of the per­former is be­ing used by a per­son for his own per­son­al pur­pose, re­port­ing cur­rent events to the ex­tent jus­ti­fied for pro­vid­ing cur­rent in­for­ma­tion eg: for news re­ports and sto­ries, or for ed­u­ca­tion or sci­en­tif­ic re­search.

Own­er­ship of per­for­mance

As a gen­er­al rule, the own­er of the copy­right is the per­son who cre­at­ed it. As such, the orig­i­nal own­er of a per­for­mance is the per­former in the per­for­mance. One im­por­tant ex­cep­tion to this is when an em­ploy­ee cre­ates a work in the course of his em­ploy­ment, in which case the copy­right own­er will be the em­ploy­er.

In re­spect of a work of joint au­thor­ship, the co-au­thors shall be the orig­i­nal own­ers of copy­right. But if such a work con­sists of parts that can be used sep­a­rate­ly and the au­thor of each part can be iden­ti­fied, the au­thor of each part shall be the orig­i­nal own­er of the copy­right in the part that he has cre­at­ed.

The same goes for the per­for­mance of two per­form­ers. They shall be the orig­i­nal own­ers of their per­for­mance, but if the per­for­mance con­sists of parts that can be used sep­a­rate­ly and the per­former of each part can be iden­ti­fied, the per­former of each part shall be the orig­i­nal own­er of the part he/she cre­at­ed.

Reme­dies

When the rights of a per­former are in­fringed, the per­former can bring an ac­tion in the High Court for the in­fringe­ment. Re­lief by way of dam­ages, in­junc­tion, ac­counts or oth­er­wise shall be avail­able to the claimant as is avail­able in pro­ceed­ings for in­fringe­ments of oth­er pro­pri­etary or own­er­ship rights.