WIPO		CRNR/DC/99 ORIGINAL: English DATE: December 23, 1996
WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION GENEVA

DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCE
ON
CERTAIN COPYRIGHT AND NEIGHBORING RIGHTS QUESTIONS

Geneva, December 2 to 20, 1996

RESOLUTION CONCERNING AUDIOVISUAL PERFORMANCES

adopted by the Diplomatic Conference on December 20, 1996

The Delegations participating in the Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions in Geneva,

Noting that the development of technologies will allow for a rapid growth of audiovisual services and that this will increase the opportunities for performing artists to exploit their audiovisual performances that will be transmitted by these services;

Recognizing the great importance of ensuring an adequate level of protection for these performances, in particular when they are exploited in the new digital environment, and that sound and audiovisual performances are increasingly related;

Stressing the urgent need to agree on new norms for the adequate legal international protection of audiovisual performances;

Regretting that, in spite of the efforts of most Delegations, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty does not cover the rights of performers in the audiovisual fixations of their performance;

Call for the convocation of an extraordinary session of the competent WIPO Governing Bodies during the first quarter of 1997 to decide on the schedule of the preparatory work on a protocol to the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, concerning audiovisual performances, with a view to the adoption of such a protocol not later than in 1998.

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