A/HRC/28/57 of corporate rights holders do not always coincide with those of authors. The human right to protection of authorship demands particular attention to situations where those interests diverge. 43. Most artists seeking to earn a living from artistic expressions must negotiate copyright licences with corporations to commercialize their works. Those contractual exchanges are often marked by an imbalance of power between the parties. Corporations may leverage a stronger bargaining position to retain most of the resulting profit, reducing benefits for artists. Copyright policy can help protect authors from such vulnerability. 44. One technique is copyright reversion. In some countries, creators retain the right to reclaim copyright interests they have transferred after a set number of years, providing the creator a second opportunity to negotiate a better return. It is important to note that the reversion right cannot be waived by contract, protecting artists against pressure to surrender it. 45. Copyright laws may also establish a creator’s right to share in the proceeds from future sales of their work, which may not be waived by contract. For example, many countries protect visual artists whose works are resold (droit de suite), ensuring that an artist receives a share of the increased value. Many copyright laws also require that background vocalists and session musicians be compensated at a set percentage of total revenues. 46. Mechanisms providing compensation for uses based on exceptions and limitations, sometimes referred to as statutory licensing, offer another approach. Many countries specify certain uses of copyrighted works that, whilst not requiring a negotiated permission from the rights holder, require that compensation be paid at a legally specified rate — the right to remuneration replaces the right to prohibit. For example, the law might specify that once a musical composition is published, any musician may perform and record it, but must pay a specified fee for each performance/copy. Similarly, some national laws specify that once a book is published, libraries are free to rent out copies of the book but must make a payment each time it is borrowed. Often, these payments are split according to a statutory formula between the creator and the current rights holder, typically a corporation. These royalty splits are not subject to negotiation between the artists and rights holders, and may be more favourable to artists than the splits negotiated in contractual settings. 14 47. National copyright laws may also require that exclusive licences — those that limit the author’s ability to offer the work to other parties — be put into writing. Courts may also choose to adopt an interpretative principle that any contractual ambiguities should be resolved in favour of the author rather than in favour of the corporate licensee. 48. Designing copyright law to promote the material interests of authors requires nuance. “Stronger” copyright protection does not necessarily advance the material interests of creators. Exceptions and limitations often support creators’ material interests by offering opportunities for statutory licensing income or the possibility of relying in part on the work of other artists in a new work or performance. An appropriate balance is crucial, recognizing that creators are both supported and constrained by copyright rules. Inequalities of bargaining power must be addressed, taking advantage of opportunities to help strengthen the hand of artists through mechanisms such as copyright reversion, droit de suite and statutory licensing. 14 10 Christophe Geiger, “Promoting Creativity through Copyright Limitations: Reflections on the Concept of Exclusivity in Copyright Law”, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law, vol. 12, No. 3 (spring 2010), p. 515.