Diritti connessi e l'industria discografica: frammentarietà internazionale e potenziale inespresso

The increasing production and consumption of music due to its digitalization and the emergence of streaming resulted in the coming to light of the financial potential of neighbouring rights, which are now one of the main revenue sources for the global record industry. Concomitantly, newly arisen issues and old exacerbated inadequacies make the worldwide recognition and administration of such rights an extremely complex task, threatening the fair collection of royalties and the long-term sustainability of the system. This challenge is extremely interesting because of the different levels at which these issues play out; some are legal issues that need to be addressed by national legislators and international institutions, others are business ones that need to be solved by a joint stakeholder effort. In this paper I review the history of neighbouring rights' recognition and the current state of legislation in the U.S., in Canada and in Europe, and then I address the aforementioned issues. First, the analysis deals with the differences in administration among territories, paying particular attention to the unique situation of the United States which does not recognize neighbouring rights in the way most other countries do. Second, I scrutinize the economic aspects of copyright pricing and the technological importance of metadata. Third, I focus on the financial importance and potential of neighbouring rights' revenue flows. Finally, proposals for change are presented. The appendix contains two additional arguments on the unbundling of the rights ratified by the Rome Convention and the obsolescence of neighbouring rights for record labels.