Chapter 14 ‘The Pretension Is Nothing; the Performance Everything’: The Origin of Performers’ Rights and the Creation of the Performer as Artist

In: The Silent Peacemaker: Intellectual Property Rights and the Interwar International Legal Order, 1919–1939
Author:
Johanna Gibson
Search for other papers by Johanna Gibson in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

$40.00

Abstract

In both copyright and in film, the status of and perspective upon performers and auteurs is a carefully managed and somewhat hierarchical relationship. Attention to the rights of performers did not start to emerge until the advent of film technology enabled the fixation and reproduction of performances in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, the artistic recognition of film and the nature of its authorship remained in question. During the interwar years, a number of particular developments were instrumental in crafting the ultimate conceptualisation of film as a copyright work, including: the influence of film criticism and theory in clarifying the authorship and artistry of film; the advent of sound technologies; and the emerging studio system and management of stardom. This period was also a critical time for relevant legal and policy developments. The United Kingdom began to address the protection of performers with a specific legislative response in the form of the Dramatic and Musical Performers Protection Act 1925. Similarly, in the United States, performers had uncertain, if any, protection, but with the advent of sound technology their interests raised real ethical, cultural and commercial questions leading to industry responses rather than legal rules. Internationally, the Rome Conference of the Berne Convention in 1928 recognised for the first time authors’ rights in a performance, but resisted calls for the rights of the performing artists themselves. In the absence of international consensus on the question of performers’ rights, which would not be achieved until the Rome Convention in 1961, the structure, culture, and legal context of national industries were critical at this time, and performers’ rights thus remained a local issue. This chapter addresses the developments in the film industry in the interwar period and its role in reform of the wider legal landscape for copyright and performers’ rights both then and today; in particular, the influence of film criticism and theory in determining the shape and the authorship of film, the role of technology, particularly sound, in the origins of performers’ rights, and the thorny issue of authorship with respect to an expanding field of the copyright work today.

  • Collapse
  • Expand
  • Abel, Richard, ‘The Contribution of the French Literary Avant-Garde to Film Theory and Criticism (1907–1924)’. Cinema Journal 14(3) (1975) 1840.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Abel, Richard. French Film Theory and Criticism, Volumei: A History/Anthology, 1907–1929 (Princeton University Pres s, 1988).

  • Arnheim, Rudolf. Film as Art /[Film als Kunst] (University of California Press, 1957/[1932]).

  • Arnold, Richard. Performers’ Rights, 6th edn (Sweet & Maxwell, 2021).

  • Arnold, Richard, ‘Do Directors Have Performers’ Rights? Intellectual Property Quarterly 3 (2022) 134140.

  • Bakker, Gerben, ‘How Motion Pictures Industrialized Entertainment’. The Journal of Economic History, 72(4) (2012) 10361063.

  • Balázs, Bela, Visible Man/[Der sichtbare Mensch], R Livingstone (trans), in Béla Balázs: Early Film Theory (Bergahn, 2010/[1924]).

  • Balázs, Bela, The Spirit of Film/[Der Geist des Films], R Livingstone (trans), in Béla Balázs: Early Film Theory (Berghahn, 2010/[1930]).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bellour, Raymond, The Cinema Spectator: A Special Memory, A Martin (trans), in I Christie. Ed. Audiences (Amsterdam University Press, 2012).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Belton, John, ‘Awkward Transitions: Hitchcock’s Blackmail and the Dynamics of Early Film Sound’. The Musical Quarterly 83(3) (1999) 227246.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Block, Alex, and Wilson, Lucy, eds. George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success (HarperCollins, 2010).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Boon, Tim, ‘The Cinematic Sound of Industrial Modernity: First Notes’. In Being Modern: The Cultural Impact of Science in the Early Twentieth Century Bud, et al, eds. (ucl Press, 2018).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bottomore, Stephen, ‘An International Survey of Sound Effects in Early Cinema’. Film History 11(4) (1999) 485498.

  • Bottomore, Stephen, ‘The Story of Percy Peashaker: Debates about Sound Effects in the Early Cinema’. In The Sounds of Early Cinema Abel, Richard, and Altman, Charles, eds. (Indiana University Press, 2001).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Brisson, Adolphe, Chronique théâtral: L’Assassinat du Duc de Guise, Le Temps, 22 November 1908, 3–4. Reproduced in French Film Theory and Criticism, Volumei: A History/Anthology, 1907–1929 Abel, Richard, ed. (Princeton University Press, 1988).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Clark, Danae, ‘Acting in Hollywood’s Best Interest: Representations of Actors’ Labor During the National Recovery Administration’. Journal of Film and Video 42(4) (1990) 319.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Clark, Danae. Negotiating Hollywood: The Cultural Politics of Actors’ Labor (University of Minnesota Press, 1995).

  • Delluc, Louis, ‘D’ou viennent et ou vont nos metteurs en scène’. Paris-midi, 10 August 1918.

  • Dewey, John, ‘The Theory of Emotion: (1) Emotional Attitudes’. Psychological Review 1 (1894) 553569.

  • Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926–1930 (Simon & Schuster, 1997).

  • Ferro, Marc, ‘Film as an Agent, Product and Source of History’. Journal of Contemporary History 18(3) (1983) 35764.

  • Frey, Mattias. The Permanent Crisis of Film Criticism: The Anxiety of Authority (Amsterdam University Press, 2015).

  • Gibson, Johanna, ‘All Words and No Performance: A Revolution in Copyright Through Performance in Sound’. In Reforming Intellectual Property Ghidini, Gustavo, and Falce, Valeria, eds. (Edward Elgar, 2022).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Gibson, Johanna, ‘The Man Behind the Curtain: Developing Film’s Double Exposure of Intellectual Property’. In Intellectual Property and the Law of Nations, 1860–1920 Morris, P. Sean, ed. (Brill, 2022).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Gomery, Douglas, ‘The “Warner-Vitaphone Peril”: The American Film Industry Reacts to the Innovation of Sound’. Journal of the University Film Association 28(1) (1976) 1119.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Goldmark, Daniel, ‘Adapting The Jazz Singer from Short Story to Screen: A Musical Profile’. Journal of the American Musicological Society 70(3) (2017) 767817.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Harmetz, Aljean. The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World Warii (Hyperion, 2002/[1992]).

  • Holmes, Sean, ‘The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labour, 1916–1934’. Film History, 12(1) (2000) 97114.

  • Hunt, Leigh. The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt (Edward Moxon, 1832).

  • James, Francis. Copinger on the Law of Copyright, 6th edn. (Sweet & Maxwell, 1927).

  • Kamina, Pascal. Film Copyright in the European Union, 2nd edn. (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

  • King, Rob, ‘Introduction: Beyond Vitaphone: The Early Sound Short’. Film History 23(3) (2011) 24750.

  • King, Rob, ‘“The Spice of the Program”: Educational Pictures, Early Sound Slapstick, and the Small-Town Audience . Film History 23(3) (2011) 31339.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Lagny, Michèle, ‘Film History: Or History Expropriated’. Film History 6(1) (1994) 2644.

  • Levy, Emanuel. All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards (Continuum, 2003).

  • McDonald, Matthew, ‘Hitchcock’s Blackmail and the Threat of Recorded Sound’. Music and the Moving Image 8(3) (2015) 4051.

  • Modleski, Tania, ‘Rape versus Mans/Laughter: Hitchcock’s Blackmail and Feminist Interpretation’. pmla (1987) 102(3) 30415.

  • Moussinac, Leon, ‘Cinématographie’. Mercure de France, 1 November 1921, 78491.

  • Naremore, James, ‘Hitchcock and Humor’. In Hitchcock: Past and Future, Allen, Richard, and Ishii-Gonzáles, Sam, eds. (Routledge, 2004).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Pavis, Mathilde, ‘Rebalancing our Regulatory Response to Deepfakes with Performers’ Rights’. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27(4) (2021) 974998.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Richards, Rashna, ‘Unsynched: The Contrapuntal Sounds of Luis Buñuel’s “L’Age d’Or”’. Film Criticism 33(2) (2008/9) 2343.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sadoul, Georges, ‘Preface’. In Dictionary of Film Makers Sadoul, Georges. (University of California Press, 1972/[1965]).

  • Schofield, Damian, ‘Digital Emotion: How Audiences React to Robots on Screen’. Computer Applications: An International Journal 5(1) (2008) 120.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Slowik, Michael, ‘Revealing Reality: Fan Magazine Rhetoric, Sound Technology, and Stardom in the Early Sound Era’. Journal of Film and Video 70(2) (2018) 3045.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Spring, Katherine, ‘“To Sustain Illusion is all that is Necessary”: The Authenticity of Song Performance in Early American Sound Cinema’. Film History 23(3) (2011) 28599.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • St Pierre, Paul. Music Hall Mimesis in British Film, 1895–1960: On the Halls on the Screen (Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Tankel, Jonathan, ‘The Impact of the Jazz Singer on the Conversion to Sound’. Journal of the University Film Association 30(1) (1978) 2125.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Weis, Elisabeth, ‘The M McDonald, Hitchcock’s Blackmail and the Threat of Recorded Sound’. Music and the Moving Image, 8(3) (2015) 4051.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Wollen, Peter. Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter-Strategies (Verso, 1982).

  • Yhcam, Cinematography, Ciné-Journal, 20 April-11 May 1912, reproduced in Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media (32/33) (1986) 160170.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Levola Hengelo v Smilde Foods (c-310/17), eu:c:2018:899.

  • Musical Performers’ Protection Association Ltd v British International Pictures Ltd (1930) 46 tlr 485.

  • Kalem v Harper Brothers, 222 US 55 (1911).

  • Infopaq International A/S v Danske Dagblades Forening (c-5/08) eu:c:2009:465.

  • Pathé Pictures Ltd v Bancroft [1928–35] Macg.Cop.Cas. 403.

  • Barker, etc., Ltd. V Hulton (£.) & Co. Ltd. (1912) 28 t.l.r. 496.

  • Nordisk Films Co Ltd v Onda [1917–23] Macg.Cop.Cas. 337.

  • The Dramatic and Musical Performers’ Protection Act 1925.

  • Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works: Berlin Act, 1908: Revised Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

  • Records of the Diplomatic Conference: Convened in Berlin, 14 October to 14 November 1908.

  • Records of the Diplomatic Conference: Convened in Rome, May 8 to June 2, 1928.

  • The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works: Rome Act, 1928: Revised International Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; Records of the Diplomatic Conference: Convened in Rome, May 8 to June 2, 1928.

Metrics

All Time Past 365 days Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 144 143 27
Full Text Views 1 1 0
PDF Views & Downloads 5 5 1