Right of performers

Performers are actors, singers, musicians, dancers and other persons, who act, sing, declaim, interpret, play in, or otherwise perform literary or artistic copyright works or expressions of folklore. A director of theatrical performance and a conductor of an artistic ensemble shall be also deemed a performer.

Subject matter of protection of rights of performers is a performance, namely live or fixed (recorded) performance.

Pursuant to the Copyright and Related Rights Act, performers have the following moral rights:

1. right of recognition of a performer;
2. right of respect for artistic performance;
3. right of respect for honour and reputation of a performer. 

Exclusive economic rights of a performer include:

1. reproduction -  fixing (recording) of his unfixed performance and further reproducing of his fixed performance;  
2. distribution (placing on the market), including renting of his fixed performance;
3. communication of his unfixed and fixed artistic performance to the public, which includes:

• right of public performance;
• right of public transmission;
• right of public communication of a fixed performance;
• right of public presentation of an audiovisual performance;
• right of broadcasting;
• right of rebroadcasting;
• tight of direct injection;
• right of making available to the public;
• right of public communication of broadcasting, rebroadcasting, direct injection and making available to the public;
• right of communication to the public, including making available to the public within an ancillary online service;
• right of communication to the public, including making available to the public when giving the public  access to performances uploaded by users on online content-sharing service providers; and
• other manners of communication to the public.

A performer is entitled to an equitable remuneration in the following cases:

• for any sound or sound and visual recording of his fixed performance for private use;
• where his fixed performance is lent by mediation of public libraries;
• for renting of his fixed performance, if a performer ceded his (exclusive) rental right to a phonogram producer or a film producer.

A performer shall be entitled to a share in a single equitable remuneration for broadcasting and any other communication to the public of his fixed performance, which consists of individual remunerations which belong to the performers and the producers of phonograms.

The right of a performer runs for 50 years as from the performance. If within that period the fixed performance is lawfully published or lawfully communicated to the public, the right shall expire upon 70 years from the first lawful publication or the first lawful communication to the public, whichever occurred earlier.