One ring to rule them all: rights in live performances

In relative terms the live performance right is experiencing a 'back to the future' resurgence. The privilege of experiencing live performance with a live audience from which forms of capture and storage have been excluded is giving rightsholders an increase in revenue proportionately higher than available from more easily pirated forms. Copyright at first sight appears to be doing the heavy lifting but on closer examination, this is only possible if the relationship of live performance to the physical playing space and its controls is better understood. Historically, laws controlling the theatrical space included elements of social control and restrictions on expression. Those laws have been largely replaced with those directed towards public safety. Performers are entitled to restrain unauthorised fixation in copyright but producers and venues control the audience through convention and the ticket of admission. Directors and other creative contributors are seeking recognition alongside the interests of playwrights and composers in the ownership of live performance and the exercise of moral right. Meanwhile, the question of sui generis protection for indigenous cultural expression and the protection of performance in public open space present challenges and opportunities. As a matter of law and of practice, the ephemeral nature of live performance continues to challenge copyright's requirements of originality, identifiable authorship and material form.