Collective Management of Copyright and Human Rights: An Uneasy Alliance

Abstract

This essay explores the relevance of the intellectual property provisions of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to the collective administration of copyright and neighboring rights in general and to the policies and practices of collective rights organizations (CROs) in particular. Until recently, the ICESCR's intellectual provisions were all but unexplored. Within the last year, however, these treaty clauses have been extensively analyzed by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Committee has produced a draft general comment on ICESCR Article 15(1)(c), "the right of everyone to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author." The draft suggests the outlines of an emerging human rights framework for intellectual property, one aspect of which - a human rights framework for collective administration of copyright - I analyze in this essay.