The Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations also known as the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations and the Rome Convention, secures protection in performances for performers, in phonograms for producers of phonograms and in broadcasts for broadcasting organizations. As of August 2021, the treaty has 97 contracting parties, with a party defined as a State which has consented to be bound by the treaty and for which the treaty is in force. The World Intellectual Property Organization is responsible for the administration of the convention jointly with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

History and scope

The Rome Convention was accepted by members of the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI), the predecessor to the modern World Intellectual Property Organization, on 26 October 1961. The Diplomatic Conference was jointly convened by BIRPI, the International Labour Organisation, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The agreement extended copyright related rights protection for the first time to entities or individuals who are not the author but have a close relationship to a copyrighted work, including performers, sound recording producers and broadcasting organizations. Nations drew up the Convention in response to new technologies like tape recorders that made the reproduction of sounds and images easier and cheaper than ever before. Whereas earlier copyright law, including international agreements like the 1886 Berne Convention, had been written to regulate the circulation of printed materials, the Rome Convention responded to the new circumstance of ideas variously represented in easily reproduced units by covering performers and producers of recordings under copyright: The Rome Convention, 496 U.N.T.S 43, allows the following exceptions in national laws to the above-mentioned rights: Furthermore, once a performer has consented to the incorporation of his performance in a visual or audiovisual fixation, the provisions on performers' rights have no further application. As to duration, protection must last at least until the end of a 20-year period computed from the end of the year in which : (a) the fixation was made, for phonograms and for performances incorporated therein; (b) the performance took place, for performances not incorporated in phonograms; (c) the broadcast took place. However, national laws increasingly provide for a 50-year term of protection, at least for phonograms and performances.