Auteurscontractenrecht: naar een wettelijke regeling?

In order to exploit the fruit of their intellectual labour, authors and performing artists must usually turn to specialised undertakings: publishers, broadcasting organisations, film producers, phonogram producers, etc. Partly as a consequence of the high level of concentration in the media sector, authors and performing artists find themselves in a structurally weaker bargaining position. This easily leads in practice to the use of unilateral standard form exploitation contracts, in which too little consideration is given to their interests. The call for the legal protection of authors and performing artists has been heard louder and louder over the last few years, with a view to arming authors and performing artists against such practices. Contrary to the situation that prevails in neighbouring
countries, the Dutch legislation in the field of copyright and neighbouring rights devotes hardly any attention to exploitation contracts. This study, which was conducted by Professor P.B. Hugenholtz and Dr. L. Guibault of the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam on commission for the department of Scientific Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) of the Dutch Ministry of Justice, aims at identifying the needs for specific legal measures in the Netherlands.