Posted on 08/15/2011 10:46:58 AM PDT by Borges
Since their release in 1978, hit albums like Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Billy Joel’s “52nd Street,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Minute by Minute,” Kenny Rogers’s “Gambler” and Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” have generated tens of millions of dollars for record companies. But thanks to a little-noted provision in United States copyright law, those artists — and thousands more — now have the right to reclaim ownership of their recordings, potentially leaving the labels out in the cold.
When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted “termination rights,” which allow them to regain control of their work after 35 years, so long as they apply at least two years in advance. Recordings from 1978 are the first to fall under the purview of the law, but in a matter of months, hits from 1979, like “The Long Run” by the Eagles and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, will be in the same situation — and then, as the calendar advances, every other master recording once it reaches the 35-year mark.
The provision also permits songwriters to reclaim ownership of qualifying songs. Bob Dylan has already filed to regain some of his compositions, as have other rock, pop and country performers like Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and Charlie Daniels, according to records on file at the United States Copyright Office.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ooops....that’s what happens when Congress rushes through a bill to please Disney and maintain their copyright on Mickey Mouse until the Second Coming
You have spoken as someone who has no idea what you are talking about.
I just put up a song on iTunes and Amazon mp3 I wrote in 1992.
I recently re-recorded the song and paid for the entire master recording, including hiring some great Nashville musicians and singers.
This song has never before been for sale to the public.
It is NOT uncommon for good songs to never be recorded for sale to the public for YEARS after they are written.
The writing of a song is the creation of the work "in tangible form" and thus begins the copyright
I am sure the same could be said for poems, books, screenplays and a host of other creative works.
For works created after 1978, the term of copyright is the lifetime of the author plus 70 years.
What is really good about the termination of assignment of copyrights, as discussed in this article, is the reversion of the copyrights to their original creator(s) or heirs.
Many copyrighted songs were assigned under horrible terms, unconscionably disfavoring the original creator(s) who were often young, inexperienced composers and artists when such assignments were executed.
It has been a sad history of exploitation that young hopeful creative people have often been royally screwed by moguls and corporations knowing such young hopefuls are so desperate for a "break," they would sign anything placed before them.
This termination of assignments brings some fairness back to the creator(s) or their heirs.
“...potentially leaving the labels out in the cold.”
Breaks my heart.
And, to boot, the artists signed those contracts. It’s hard to complain about fairness and parity when they entered into the deal of their own free will. Those same contracts are now giving them the rights to renegotiate now, so it is folly to decry one part of the deal while praising the other .
I also remember that he was forced to change the title of "Zanz Kant Danz" to "Vanz Kant Danz", since Zanz was a play on the name of Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz.
On a related note, I just learned something interesting about copyrights.
Was listening to a Christian radio station where they were reading passages out of the Bible. After the readings they read a disclaimer that said “Copyright 1992, XYZ Publishing Co., All Rights Reserved”.
Apparently you CAN copyright the Word of God!
Or at least a particular translation of it.
I’ll say it again: the last good copyright law was the Law of Queen Anne.
You disagree with my minimalist position on copyright, and defend laws I object to, but that is very different from my speaking as one who has no idea what I’m talking about. Copyright has ceased to function as the Founders (who had in mind the Law of Queen Anne and the Statute on Monopolies of 1624 when they include Congress’s powers in that regard in the Constitution) intended. Lifetime of author plus seventy year is an impediment to the arts, as it prevents derivative works.
I think you missed the word “should” in my post. I’m advocating a return to the Law of Queen Anne’s terms, not out of ignorance of the present state of copyright law, but in objection to it.
“Labels are people.”
The problem with current copyright law is that much content is lost when it goes out of print. Movies, music, and books that do not justify continual re-publishing will have their media long be lost by the time they come into public domain, whereas public-domain content will always find SOMEBODY that likes it well enough to give it disk space on the internet.
When he was 21 or so, Billy Joel signed an onerous contract with a pop svengali that gave that person royalties from Joel’s subsequent career at Columbia records lasting well into the mid 1980s...until that label bought out the contract as a favor to Joel.
Since I don't view the artists as being nearly as greedy as RIAA, even if they tripled their income per recording, it would still be less than the crooks' "cheap" versions.
Not likely to work.
I have always wondered why the option of buying directly from the artist was not an option.
Wonder no more. The last 5 CD I've bought (all over the Net) were from independent labels , likely the artists' own imprints, with no signs on them of association with the big 4, as was the case until recently when artists presented their albums on what looked like their own labels (such as, say, Apple Records (EMI), or Rolling Stones Records (WB, Universal) both distributed by the international giants.)
Isn’t that the story behind his song “The Great Wall of China”?
As the spouse of a composer, I disagree strongly. Copyright should be for the entire life of the composer, the lives of his children and grandchildren, just as a house and land are passed down from parent to child.
As the spouse of a composer I of course agree with you. I have found ghat it’s almost impossible to communicate about these issues with civilians, even if they are really smart and educated. I had a good friend who was an important figure in painting - a very intelligent and educated person - she thought that making an album was you go into a place and play some songs while a recorder is running. Could not grasp the idea of rehearsal. multiple takes, ovetdubs even when it was explained to her.
Thank you. Very well put.
So you’ve bought into the reification of a government granted monopoly as “property”, and want to collect rents in perpetuity. How nice. Rent seeking is always a drag on the productive economy.
Martha Graham’s dances were nearly lost because relatives who gained control of her artistic legacy wouldn’t let them be performed while the dancers who had muscle memory of them could teach others because they weren’t going to be paid enough. Derivative works (e.g. use of Robert Frost’s poetry as song lyrics) are suppressed because commercial publishers, holding the rights to the poems, want a fat cut decades after the artist died.
Copyright and patents are not inalienable human rights: they are state granted monopolies, whose purpose under the Constitution is to promote the arts and sciences. As it is, they do the opposite. I dare say, the chief effect of your grandchildren holding monopoly rights over your spouse’s compositions will be to suppress their performance, to keep remix artists from breathing new life into recording of your spouse’s works by sampling them, and to prevent other composers from composing “Variations of a theme of [substitute the real name of kabumpo’s spouse here]”. What is more, it is likely that they will derive very little income from exercising that control, well, not unless your spouse’s compositions become iconic like “Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree”, and your progeny lie in wait to sue other artists who quote a melodic line in tribute, the way Men at Work did in the flute riff in “The Land Down Under”.
One reason I bring up the old laws I regard as good models is that they were promulgated in a time when it was recognized that copyright and patents are state granted monopolies, not “property”. The phrase “intellectual property” only came into common use in the 1870’s, championed, of course, by folks who, like you, wanted to collect rents from a government-granted monopoly.
I guess some even FReepers don’t mind the expansion of state power, so long as they get to profit from it.
I have yet to hear a remix that “breathed new life” into anything. Why would any work of art need new life? The person who created the work didn’t cannibalize an earlier piece - why doesn’t the new life breather breath his own original work?
It’s too bad we’re not one nation under a groove.
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