Term of related rights

The term of related rights is the period during which performers, phonogram and videogram producers and broadcasting organisations hold exclusive economic rights over their performance, their fixation or their programmes. The principle is a term of fifty years, laid down by Article L. 211-4 of the French Intellectual Property Code pursuant to Directive 2006/116/EC, with a starting point specific to each category and an extension to seventy years for published phonograms, derived from Directive 2011/77/EU.

The principle and the starting points

Economic rights last fifty years from 1 January of the calendar year following the triggering event. That event is the performance for the performer, the first fixation for phonogram and videogram producers, and the first communication of the programmes to the public for broadcasting organisations.

The extension for phonograms

Where a fixation of the performance in a phonogram, or the phonogram itself, is published or communicated to the public during the initial fifty-year period, the rights of the performer and of the phonogram producer expire seventy years after 1 January of the calendar year following the first of those events. This extension comes with an additional annual remuneration for performers paid a lump sum and with a right to terminate the contract if the producer does not exploit the phonogram. For videograms, publication or communication to the public during the initial period merely starts a fresh fifty-year period.

Special terms

The press publishers’ related right expires two years after 1 January of the calendar year following first publication. The performer’s moral right, for its part, cannot be lost through lapse of time and passes to the heirs, so that it survives the expiry of the economic rights. Moreover, the terms of related rights are independent of the term of copyright in the work performed or fixed, so that a recording may be free while the work remains protected, or the reverse.

The public domain

The expiry of related rights brings the performance or the fixation into the public domain, which allows its reproduction and dissemination without authorisation, subject to the author’s surviving rights and to the performer’s moral right. The 2011 extension applies only to phonograms still protected on the date it entered into force, so that the date of first publication determines the status of many recordings from the 1960s.

Key points

Related rights last fifty years from the year following the performance, the fixation or the first broadcast, and seventy years from publication for phonograms published during that period. The press publishers’ right lasts only two years. Before exploiting an old recording, determine separately the date of fixation, the date of first publication and the status of the underlying work, as each of these rights follows its own computation.

---

This glossary entry is general in scope and does not constitute legal advice.

Dhenne Avocats is a patent litigation firm. Matters outside that field, such as trade marks, designs, copyright and IT contracts, are handled by practitioners the firm works with regularly, and by the firm itself when they arise in a patent dispute.

Intellectual property attorney · Tell us about your situation