Neighbouring Rights: Performers Rights, Rights of Broadcasting Organizations and Rights of the Producers of Phonograms

When you watch an IPL match on TV, four different parties may claim something: the person who wrote the commentary script, the players who perform, the channel that broadcasts, and the company that records the highlights. Only the first is an author in the classical sense. The others do not create the work but bring it to the public, and the law gives them rights of their own. These are called neighbouring rights, and they sit next to copyright without being copyright.

In two minutes

Neighbouring rights protect those who communicate or perform works rather than create them: broadcasting organisations (broadcast reproduction right, s.37), performers (performer’s right and moral rights, ss.38–38B) and producers of sound recordings (copyright as a work under ss.13 and 14(e)).

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