Newsletter
PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF AUDIO-VISUAL COPYRIGHTED WORKS IS NOT PUBLIC PER-FORMANCE OF MUSICAL WORKS AND SOUND RE-CORDINGS
Although copyright owners can claim public performance rights, the Intellectual Property Of-fice (IPO) has announced again that remunera-tion claims cannot be simultaneously made for movie showings. As for literary, musical, dra-matic and dancing works, the Copyright Act stipulates that a copyright owner has the exclu-sive right to publicly present his audio-visual copyrighted works and give public performances. Performers have the exclusive right to make their own public performance by utilizing amplifiers and other sound equipment, except those who would give a public performance using amplifi-ers and other sound equipment after such per-formance has been reproduced or publicly broadcast. Once sound recordings are played in public, a copyright owner can demand the player to pay him royalties.
If the public presentation of audio-visual copy-righted works involves the public performance of musical works and sound recordings, users must obtain a license from copyright owners. The IPO again issued an official letter to explain that since the showing of movies at the cinema is an act to publicly present audio-visual copyrighted works, a copyright owner of musical works and sound recordings may not separately claim for the right to publicly perform musical works and be enti-tled to a claim of remuneration for the public performance of sound recordings.