The Civil Law Status of the Co-Owner of an Exclusive Related Right to Joint Performance

Introduction: the positioning of group performing acts as the driving force of industries as well as the highly conflict-generating nature of the creative environment necessitate the creation of a normative framework that would ensure a high degree of certainty in the content of the rights and obligations of each member of a group of performers, as well as of other persons who are co-owners of exclusive related rights to joint performance. Purpose: to identify the civil-law status of the co-owner of an exclusive related right to joint performance. Methods: general scientific methods, sociological analysis of law, specific historical method, systematic approach, comparative legal and legal-dogmatic methods. Results: the study has established that the scope of rights and obligations of a performing group member will depend on the following factors: 1) the basis for the acquisition (emergence) of the exclusive related right to the joint performance (original or derivative, by inheritance, or on other grounds) and the type of the subject-owner; 2) classification of the person as a specific type of performer (a performing artist, conductor, or stage director); 3) whether or not the person has the status of the director of a performing group; 4) the type of joint performance (official performance; performance created on order; performance included in a complex object); 5) the regime of joint performance (separable or inseparable). Conclusions: the legal status of persons owning exclusive rights to joint performance is not uniform. The mosaic nature of the normative layer of Chapter 71 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation does not contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the position of both members of a performing group and persons to whom an exclusive related right to joint performance has been transferred on derivative grounds. In order to clarify the legal status of the mentioned persons, the paper proposes some improvements in the legislation.