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posted by Fnord666 on Monday November 11 2019, @06:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-take-backseys dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Little-known aspect of US copyright law means creators can reclaim their work

The Hollywood Reporter recently ran an article by Eriq Gardner entitled "Real-Life 'Terminator': Major Studios Face Sweeping Loss of Iconic '80s Film Franchise Rights," which is certainly an attention-demanding headline. Some of the franchise properties referred to in Gardner's piece are worth – without exaggeration – billions of dollars to the studios.

Money, in copyright-land, has the attribute of making things happen. Long story short, the creators of the original works underlying these now-classic films are making use of a relatively little-known (and little understood) aspect of US copyright law, known as "termination of transfers." Through this, creators can reclaim their rights from the studios to whom they sold them long ago (and perhaps sell them again, either to the same studios or to someone else).

Before we dive deeper into those particular film instances, we should back up a bit and look at the larger context of the two termination sections of Title 17 of the U.S. Code (comprising the US copyright statute) and what Congress had in mind when they inserted them.

There's no way, in a brief blog post, to substitute for a full study of this topic, but I'll provide a few helpful links along the way for readers who may wish to wade into the deeper end of this pool.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by EvilSS on Monday November 11 2019, @02:36PM

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 11 2019, @02:36PM (#918938)
    There are basically three ways to "sell" a copyright work. Transfer (also called 'assignment'), where you are the original holder and you transfer the copyright and all associated rights to a third party. License, where you are again the original holder, and you grant license to the work to a third party but you retain ownership. Lastly there is Work-for-hire where you create the work under copyright, but do so under employ or contract of a third party, and they are granted the original copyright. This applies to the first two.

    To qualify for the Copyright Termination Right, the transfer or license must have been executed by the author...

    Starting Score:    1  point
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