On May 7th the Chamber of Deputies of Chile open
a debate regarding an initiative presented by the Executive, which seeks to
modify Law 20,243. The draft Bill (bulletin 9889) seeks to modify the law that
establishes rules on the moral and economic rights of performers and artistic
performances which are fixed in audio-visual format.
The debate was discussed by the Committee on Culture, Arts
and Communications together with representatives of the National Society of Authors
of Theatre, Cinema and Audio-visuals (ATN) as well as Chile Actor’s president Ms
Esperanza Silva. The debate put forward the need to add that both, directors
and screenwriters, have a patrimonial right on the registration of the work.
In this context, the actress Esperanza Silva acknowledged
how important it is to be granted rights over works, specially to writers and audio-visual
directors and said that this is in need and just. She noted that music authors
have enjoyed many rights since way back and she felt that it was an appropriate
policy to be extended to directors and screenwriters.
After hearing the proposals of the guests, Deputy Marcos
Espinosa (PRSD), said the project should pick up the signs for ‘safeguarding’ under
the law what is happening in the reality. Additionally, the President of the
Commission, Deputy Roberto Poblete (IND), said that "today was a
tremendous contribution to listen to the representatives of ATN and Chile
Actors, since our directors and script writers are very vulnerable and justice
is of paramount to them”.
Finally, the deputy Poblete said the next guidelines
to be followed with respect to the project is to "try to establish a very
clear definition of the different roles inside of audio-visual production” and
which ones are under the umbrella of intellectual property.
