Authors' Rights - Related (or Neighbouring) Rights

Related (or Neighbouring) Rights

Related rights (in German verwandte Schutzrechte), often referred to as neighbouring rights as a more direct translation of the French Droit Voisins, are property rights granted to people who are not the “author” of the work in the creative sense of the term. Typically these include performers, producers of phonograms (records, CDs, etc.), producers of films (as opposed to directors or scriptwriters) and broadcasting organisations. Related rights are generally more restricted than authors’ rights in civil law countries, although they may be equivalent in common law countries where both fall under the same concept of “copyright”. They are not directly covered by the Berne Convention, but are internationally protected by other treaties such as the Rome Convention.