Copyright and Archives for Theatre Performing Arts

Abstract

For the recording, preserving, and exploiting theatre performing arts archives, it is essential to clarify various related rights among stakeholders, such as playwrights, directors, stage design, costume, lighting, and sound staff, musicians, choreographers, and actors. Although it is impossible to preserve audiences’ real live experiences, audiovisual recordings are important materials for theatre archiving and its exploitation. Based on experiences of the EPAD project and practices, this article describes the details of necessary rights clearance for the preservation and exploitation of theatre archives, and hopefully can provide a useful perspective to overcome the related challenges.