Re: GNU License and Computer Break Ins

[Lindsay Haisley <fmouse@fmp.com>]

Thus spake Steve Greenland on Sun, May 21, 2000 at 11:55:48AM CDT
> On 21-May-00, 01:51 (CDT), Lindsay Haisley <fmouse@fmp.com> wrote: 
> > There are several levels of 'ownership' here.  What are called 'mechanical'
> > rights - the rights to the actual recorded sound are different from the
> > rights to the arrangement, lyrics and music.  I can see where record
> > companies might assume, or want to assume ownership of the mechanical rights
> > (especially if they finance the recording sessions), but I expect they'd be
> > digging their own graves if they insisted on ownership of the copyrights to
> > works for which they publish recordings.
> 
> You'd think so, but apparently they don't. See
> http://wallofsound.go.com/archive/news/stories/donhenley050900.html
> Note that so far the bill has been passed only in the US House, not the
> Senate.

Have you seen anything else on this?  This looks like an issue re. reversion
of copyright after 35 years, but perhaps not with immediate consequences. 
Is there anything to prevent explicit language in a contract to circumvent
this?  A contract could, of course, be written so as to determine the fate
of copyright ownership after any period of time, or at the end of the 35
year copyright period.  Some artists have contracts that stipulate that full
rights of ownership to artistic works revert to the artist after x number of
years if the recording company doesn't do anything with them, although this
is the exception, I understand, but if it's in a contract it has the force
of law.  What's really nasty here is the idea that they're trying to push
this to be retroactive since the issue has apprently not been addressed in
contracts in the past.

The article you cite above is inconveniently vague on details.  Is the
copyright in question the >song< copyright or the >mechanical< copyright (or
both)?  What if the artist doesn't own the copyright on a song in the first
place, and has maybe assigned ownership of the published copyright on a song
to his/her/their publishing company?  What's the House Bill number to which
this was attached as an amendment?

IMHO, the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI and several other entities in the music industry
are <unmentionable explitive deleted> and I wouldn't put it past them to try
>anything<, but without a few more details, it's hard to say that this is as
dire a situation as some people might think it is.

And maybe we ought to take this off-list since it's >WAY< off topic :P

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