An exciting period of negotiating and litigating is starting to pick up: authors and heirs of authors are starting to exercise their rights to "recapture" copyrights that had already been sold to publishers, record companies and other content owners. Content owners will come under increasing pressure to squeeze value from copyrights in their waning years - - and projects involving recaptured properties will dot our cultural landscape for the coming years.
The cases to date have dealt with such important properties as Winnie-the-Pooh, Lassie, Captain America and certain Steinbeck works
For a great article on copyright termination from a living author's perspective (17 U.S.C. 203 - Termination of transfers and licenses granted by the author), check out Margo E. Crespin's "A Second Bite of the Apple: A Guide To Terminating Transfers under Section 203 of the Copyright Act" which is found at the Authors Guild website.
For a cookbook/questionnaire type approach that has a useful discussion of how to figure out whether or when you can get your client's copyright back, check out Creative Commons' ccLabs Termination of Transfer Tool. Read the FAQ - these are the questions that your clients will be asking you in coming years. 17 U.S.C. 304 governs terminations of grants of pre-1978 copyrights by authors and their heirs.
The Crespin article and the Tool are very helpful since the language and meaning of Sections 203 and 304 is very difficult to master.
Trusts and estates attorneys take note! The Copyright Act has a number of succession provisions that trump the language of an author's will. Federal law is said to "preempt" state law in this area.
Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. Author Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2019-2020)
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Copyright Recapture By Authors and Heirs (Ch 7)
Labels:
17 usc 203,
copyright law,
copyright recapture,
copyright termination,
copyright transfers,
termination of copyright transfer,
trusts and estates,
winnie-the-pooh
Partner in law firm Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP in New York City litigating in federal and state courts and arbitrations. Experienced trial and appellate practitioner. Author: Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters 2019-2020). The New York Law Journal called it "an indispensable guide". Board of Directors of the Fordham Law Alumni Association, former General Counsel & Director Federal Bar Association, FBA Chair of the Circuit VPs, ViP for Second Circuit. Member Board of Governors, National Arts Club. President, Network of Bar Leaders (2013-2014).
Attorney advertising disclaimer - prior results do not guarantee success. The statements and opinions voiced here are my own and not of my law firm.
Copyright Restoration Act - Locating Restored Works
Section 104A of 17 U.S.C. restored copyrights in certain foreign works that had fallen into the public domain due to a failure to carry a copyright notice. The restored copyright vests initially in the author or initial rightholder of the work. If an owner intends to enforce the copyright against someone who used the work in the U.S. based on that person's reliance on the work's public domain status, the owner must file a notice with the Copyright Office, which must in turn be published in the Federal Register.
To search the Copyright Catalog to find Notices of Intent to Enforce (NIE), go here.
To get the Copyright Office's Federal Register notices indexed by year and title or subscribe to an RSS feed to get them automatically, go here.To search the entire Federal Register for recent years go here.
To search the Code of Federal Regulations for any number of reasons, go here.
To search the Copyright Catalog to find Notices of Intent to Enforce (NIE), go here.
To get the Copyright Office's Federal Register notices indexed by year and title or subscribe to an RSS feed to get them automatically, go here.To search the entire Federal Register for recent years go here.
To search the Code of Federal Regulations for any number of reasons, go here.
Labels:
17 usc 104A,
code of federal regulations,
copyright office,
copyright restoration act,
foreign works,
notice of intent to enforce,
recording documents with the copyright office
Partner in law firm Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP in New York City litigating in federal and state courts and arbitrations. Experienced trial and appellate practitioner. Author: Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters 2019-2020). The New York Law Journal called it "an indispensable guide". Board of Directors of the Fordham Law Alumni Association, former General Counsel & Director Federal Bar Association, FBA Chair of the Circuit VPs, ViP for Second Circuit. Member Board of Governors, National Arts Club. President, Network of Bar Leaders (2013-2014).
Attorney advertising disclaimer - prior results do not guarantee success. The statements and opinions voiced here are my own and not of my law firm.
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