The Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances has officially entered into force.

The international agreement, approved in 2012 by WIPO Member States at a Diplomatic Conference hosted by the Chinese Government in Beijing, promotes the economic sustainability of audiovisual industry by dealing with the intellectual property rights of performers. It bolsters indeed five kinds of exclusive economic rights for the beneficiaries’ performances fixed in an audiovisual format: the rights of reproduction, distribution, rental, making available and broadcasting and communication to the public.

The Treaty members, coherently with their legal systems, agree to adopt all the measures needed to ensure its application. In particular, each party has to guarantee that enforcement procedures are available under their laws, as an effective action against acts of infringement of rights covered by the Treaty.

The Beijing Treaty updates for the digital era the protection for audiovisual performances contained in the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (1961). These updates for the digital era complement the provisions in the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), which updated protection for performers, other than audiovisual performers, and for producers of phonograms.