États-Unis d'Amérique

Fédération de Russie

Droit d'auteur et droits connexes

Additional Follow-Up to Question 4: The Russian Federation notes that portions of the Russian Civil Code correspond to Article 14bis of the Berne Convention. Article 14bis permits countries to establish, by legislation, ownership of cinematographic works. If a country has established among the copyright owners in the cinematographic work the authors who have brought contributions to the making of the cinematographic work, such country may provide that authors who contribute to cinematographic works cannot object to certain uses of the works (e.g., reproduction, distribution, public performance) in the absence of any contrary or special stipulation. The Russian Federation's answer to our question does not appear to address the specific language of Article 14bis "in the absence of any contrary or special stipulation." The Russian Civil Code appears to prohibit contrary and special stipulations (which 14bis(2)(c) permits a country to require in writing). As an example: In the U.S., music composers maintain the right of public performance in their contracts when their musical works are used in motion pictures, and then license the public performance of their music when the motion picture is communicated to the public via television or cable. This does not appear to be a possibility under your law. Please explain how Russian law complies with Article 14bis(2)(b).

The provisions of Part 4 of the CC RF contain the references to the "contrary or special conditions" as provided by Article 14 bis (2) (b) of the Berne Convention. According to subpara 4 of para 2 of Article 1263 of the CC RF the producer of audiovisual work shall be entitled to an audiovisual work as a whole, unless otherwise follows from the contracts concluded by him with the authors of an audiovisual work (director, script writer and composer). In this case, the right to use audiovisual work will oblige the user to obtain the consent not only from the producer of an audiovisual work, but also from the author of such work.