The Beijing Treaty on Free Expression: How Stopping Digital Piracy May Cost the World Free Expression

Abstract

The Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances grants, for the first time, international rights to performers to protect their work in an audiovisual medium. This is a step forward in protecting audiovisual media from international piracy or infringement, but comes at a cost. While performers’ economic rights are kept in check by fair use defenses (favored uses designed to promote the creation of new works) performers’ moral rights from the Beijing Treaty contain no counterbalancing defense. This Comment argues that without this counterbalancing defense, performers may assert these moral rights against other artists unchecked, consequently chilling the free expression that copyright laws are supposed to foster.