You Could Lose All Rights to Your Own Art

[JimB]

Two views - you decide, but it's good to be aware (heavily modified post):

http://mag.awn.com/?article_no=3605
http://maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html

[Oshyan]

I think from looking at the reality of the situation - that there is no actual bill on the books for example - and the sheer magnitute of things that Mark Simon clearly got wrong, it's hard to really trust his view of the situation. Meredith Patterson may not have all the answers, but she sure sounds like she has her head on a lot "straighter" than Mark. I think Mark has been misled by others with a vested interest and is really just not very well informed. Personally I support the proposed legislation.

- Oshyan

[rcallicotte]

It's interesting what the National Music Publishers' Association said - "Experience shows that the copyright owners — typically the music publishers — have the greatest economic incentive to invest in promoting and exploiting their mature musical repertory precisely because of their ability to earn royalties by licensing such works. A scheme that would impose registration obligations on copyright owners would perversely encourage publishers to abandon works rather than invest in their exploitation.  This would diminish rather than enhance the musical domain.  In addition, we believe that the reintroduction of formalities (by imposing obligations on copyright owners to register or renew their works, among other things) would undermine the current copyright scheme."

But, after reading this http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0112-Danforth.pdf , I'm pretty concerned that whatever graphic work that someone like a JimB might make in the future for Indiana Jones Raids the Nursing Home Refrigerator could no longer belong to JimB within any circumstance.  It might instead belong to the movie studio or producer.  Maybe the idea that we should register works, as long as this process was online and easy, could prevent this problem altogether.

[Oshyan]

Calico, did you read Meredith's post (the 2nd link)? There does not appear to be any provision for *mandatory* registration of copyrighted works. That seems to be something either Mark Simon or his "source" *completely made up*, or just completely misunderstood from the actual proposed legislation.

As for something created for say Indiana Jones being owned by the studio, yes, absolutely. That's true *right now*. It's "work for hire". There is no proposed change to the law that says otherwise, that I know of.

Once again I think this whole thing is being blown out of proportion by a few misinformed, misguided, or just plain self-interested people; people with *vested interests* in the current situation, and in licensing their considerable body of *other people's works* for their own ends. This uproar over *proposed* legislation does not appear to be about the rights of individual artists, but driven rather by a few large rights holders. The proposal itself seems pretty reasonable.

As for the "music domain" being dimished by enforcement of copyright registration (which I'll remind you is *not* a part of any proposed legislation), I think that you really have to consider the source here: the Music *Publishers* Association. Not the music *makers* association, not the music *players* association or the music *writers* association, no, the *publishers*. Yes, they may be disincentivized to register their massive body of works, but the individual others may indeed not be, especially with the prospect of actually owning their own works should the larger publishers be "disinclined" to maintain their copyright. In other words it may not work in the best interests of the large copyright holders - the massive conglomerate record publishers - but that doesn't mean it's going to hurt *music*, musical diversity, musical prevalence, musical quality. Quite possibly the opposite. But again it's a moot point as there is no such proposed legislation.

- Oshyan

[JimB]

As for something created for say Indiana Jones being owned by the studio, yes, absolutely. That's true *right now*. It's "work for hire". There is no proposed change to the law that says otherwise, that I know of.

Not quite that black & white, depending on the type of contract or employment status. Many film contracts have a provision for the studio to buy the rights to any original input for the token sum of $1 or £1. It depends on a lot of things. Never heard of the director who took out an injunction to halt the release of his own film until he got his writer's credit, and the fee that goes with it? It happens.

By the way, even though the second link I posted may seem the voice of reason, you should also read the long discussion afterwards. There are a couple of very salient points made that indicate the first link might not be so far off the mark yet. However, it is possible to register a 'body of work' as opposed to having to register each individual piece, for the same sum as an individual piece. This is quite common I believe.

[Oshyan]

Yes, I've read both links and the discussion under both, as well as several other articles/blog posts on Meredith's site and nothing leads me to believe that she doesn't have the levellest head in this debate.

I know some directors/studios/whatever can have provisions in place for buying rights, it's just not the norm as far as I know, so as a general rule they do own your work. I also don't think it is very often at the discretion of the artist to buy their work, but rather the studio, director, etc. This is probably because it has to be originally agreed upon contractually, which the individual artist almost never has any say in.

- Oshyan

[JimB]

Well, just because someone's level-headed doesn't make them right, and just because someone's paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get him 

I did write a longer reply, but lost my login on submit. I really can't be bothered rewriting it.    We'll see how it pans out, but I'm not convinced something's not afoot. For all of Merdith's reassurements, none of it reconciles with the comments made by the copyright officer in Brad Holland's interview, and he's the real deal.