'Pretend-Y Rights.' on the Insanely Complicated New Regime for Performers' Rights in Australia, and How Australian Performers Got Gypped

Abstract

From 1 January 2005, over eight years after the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) was concluded, and not far shy of 10 years after performers obtained economic and moral rights in the UK, Australia was finally dragged kicking and screaming to the performers' rights party. Although the issue had long been on the government's copyright agenda, the final impetus for the adoption of performers' moral and economic rights was not a local policy decision but a provision of the Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States of America ('AUSFTA'). It is perhaps significant that the aim of promoting performers' interests appears in neither the Explanatory Memorandum nor the Second Reading Speech of the legislation which implemented that treaty.

Keywords: performers' rights, free trade agreement, moral rights, Australia

JEL Classification: K1, K11, K19