Music Copyright War Looming

quarterbuck writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "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. ... 'We believe the termination right doesn’t apply to most sound recordings,' said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group in Washington that represents the interests of record labels. As the record companies see it, the master recordings belong to them in perpetuity, rather than to the artists who wrote and recorded the songs, because, the labels argue, the records are 'works for hire,' compilations created not by independent performers but by musicians who are, in essence, their employees."

Comments

Re:Covers

[MightyMartian]

It's an amusing in a "they did what?" kind of way. Fogerty had had a very unpleasant breakup from his band and his old record company. About 15 years after CCR released Run Through The Jungle, Fogerty basically lifted the chorus and overall structure of song (which he wrote) for the song Old Man Down The Road. His old record company sued him for copyright infringement. In the end, he did prevail, but the whole thing was ludicrous, and part of a very long-running set of disputes that Fogerty had with his former band, his former label and his former management.

Re:OK fine, they were employees

[cpt kangarooski]

It's somewhat more complicated.

In the US, a work may be a work made for hire under one of two circumstances:

First, if the work is specially ordered or commissioned, the work falls into one of a handful of categories enumerated in the Copyright Act (e.g. part of an atlas, part of a motion picture) and the parties involved expressly agree in a written instrument that they both sign, that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. (N.B.: Unless the work is of one of the specific types, explicitly saying that a work is made for hire doesn't mean anything.)

Second, if the work is prepared by an employee in the scope of their employment, the employer will be considered to be the author, unless the parties involved expressly agree in a written instrument that they both sign, that the work shall not be considered a work made for hire.

But Congress never really addressed what constitutes employment in this situation, so the courts will look at a number of factors to try to figure it out, e.g. who supplied the equipment that was used, where the labor occured, how it was treated for tax purposes, etc. It's entirely possible for a contractor to be considered an employee for the purposes of this part of copyright law, given the right circumstances.

The Wikipedia article on this goes into more depth.