Author’s Rights
Author’s Rights Law
The Author’s Rights of audiovisual works are protected by Law 9610/98, which recognize the author of the subject or literary, musical, and the director as co-authors of the audiovisual work. As the holder of both economic and moral rights over the audiovisual work, the director exclusively exercises the moral right over the audiovisual work.
Although Brazilian Author’s Rights Law guarantees the director's ownership as an author, the collection and distribution of rights related to the public communication of the audiovisual work to directors has not yet been regulated.
Collective Societies
Often, the control and collection, individually, of the use of works created by authors can be difficult and burdensome. An author alone would not be able to monitor one, let alone hundreds of TV stations around the world, which could be using their work at any given moment. On the other hand, it would be very difficult for a TV station to contact each author individually every time they used a work.
If the work were a film, the situation would be even more complicated, as an audiovisual work is made up of a group of different authors, with different categories of creative work (musician, literary author, and director).
The solution found by authors to bridge the gap between them and the users of their works was to unite and manage their rights collectively. Thus, "collective management societies" were created, which operate worldwide around different repertoires. There are those that represent and manage the rights of composers and performers, others that represent and manage the rights of writers, and so on.
International Collaborations
Today, there are about two million authors who are members or affiliates of associations like CISAC from France (Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Auteurs et Compositeurs/International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers).
CISAC brings together all associations whose goal is the collective management of author’s rights.
The collective management of rights allows author’s rights holders to organize around the common goal of collecting fees for the use of protected works across all media and platforms capable of displaying, publishing, reproducing, and transmitting them, ensuring that creators receive fair compensation for the use of their works.
The DBCA has explicit support from DAC (Directores Argentinos Cinematográficos), which, since 2009, has regulated collective management in Argentina and now carries out this work successfully. Additionally, DBCA has support from ADAL (Alianza de Directores Audiovisuales Latino-Americanos), W&DW (Writers & Directors Worldwide), and CISAC itself.