Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2004
This dispute between the European Communities and the United States originated when the United States amended its copyright law in a way that nullified and impaired certain benefits promised to the European Communities under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs). Article 9.1 of TRIPs requires all WTO members to comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention of 1971. Among the provisions of the Berne Convention thus incorporated into the TRIPs Agreement is one that grants to authors of literary and artistic works the exclusive right to authorize ‘the public communication by loudspeaker or any analogous instrument transmitting, by signs, sounds or images, the broadcast of the work’, and another that grants to authors of dramatic and musical works the exclusive right to authorize ‘any communication to the public of the performance of these works’.