Les droits moraux des artistes interprètes de l’audiovisuel, perspectives internationales

Les droits moraux, aujourd’hui encore, ne jouissent pas d’une reconnaissance égale à travers le monde. Ce qui vaut pour les auteurs d’œuvres artistiques vaut à plus forte raison pour les artistes-interprètes de l’audiovisuel dont le statut varie entre deux systèmes principaux : le système en vigueur aux États-Unis, où leurs droits ne sont le fruit que de la négociation de contrats en l’absence de toute garantie minimum légale, et le système plus civiliste des droits voisins, qui veut que la loi garantisse un minimum de droits aux artistes-interprètes sans pour autant que cela s’apparente à des droits d’auteur. Le droit international, par la force des choses, a dû se saisir de cette question des droits reconnus aux artistes-interprètes et élaborer des réponses ayant pour vocation de pallier les divergences nationales. La réponse la plus simple et la plus rapide était évidemment de passer par le droit international privé, mais la solution posée par les conventions internationales ne permet pas de garantir des droits pérennes aux artistes- interprètes. La réponse matérielle donnée par la seule convention internationale, le Traité de Beijing, qui traite de ces artistes de l’audiovisuel n’est pas plus de nature à nous rassurer. Pour revenir sur ces faiblesses du système international, il a paru envisageable de procéder à une requalification de l’artiste-interprète en auteur, mais cette solution est en réalité pure chimère. Moral rights, nowadays, are not equally protected in the different countries. Performers in the audiovisual industry do not benefit from an equal protection either. Indeed, two systems prevail concerning the recognition of rights for performers. On one side, the USA does not recognize any legal protection for them and leave wide open the doors to negotiations between performers and producers. On the other side, the “civil law” system of neighbouring rights gives legal protection to performers, but it must not be confused with the copyright protection for authors. Because the issue continued to grow, international law was called upon to decide what should be the preferable protection for performers in the audiovisual industry in a century that knows technological progress and had to deal with the many disparities among the existing systems in force. The easiest answer was to choose private international law and not to go into the material provisions. But there is no doubt that this answer, if it offers the advantage of dealing with the difficulties very quickly, was not the ideal one and that a real material law embracing the issue of the protection of performers’ rights in the audiovisual industry was needed. This material answer was procided recently in the Beijing Treaty. Some concerns still remain about the emergence of as effective protection for performers’ rights and their qualification as authors is not the providential answer we thought it could be.

Keyphrases: Droit moral, Oeuvre audiovisuelle, Convention internationale, Droits voisins, Artiste-interprète, Droit international privé, Traité de Beijing, Étude comparée, Audiovisual work, Beijing Treaty, Comparative law, International Conventions, Private international Law, Moral right, Neighbouring right, Performers