Tuesday, August 16, 2011
THIS NOTE'S FOR ME: Fascinating article over at the New York Times about the brewing dispute over the termination of record companies' ownership of music made in and after 1978. Apparently the 1978 revisions to the copyright statute gave "authors" the right to terminate others' ownership over their works after 35 years. I have no idea what this means -- who an author is (Rick Rubin?), whether it is based on publishing or performance rights, etc. The NYT also points out that it isn't clear whether termination rights apply, for example, to bands who sign their contracts in foreign countries but record here. The recording industry, of course, claims that all works by contract artists are "works for hire," which, from what little I know, seems to be an aggressive but non-frivolous argument. The only thing that seems settled is that there is a ton of money at stake, and going from royalties to ownership of an artist's catalog might cause significant changes both in the finances of some individual artists and in the tenuous health of the record companies.
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ReplyDeletewouldn't the argument that the sound recordings aren't works for hire would only apply for those artists who've already recouped their recording advances that were charged against royalties? it's not a work for hire in either sense, i'd gather, but if the artist still owes the label money, is there really an argument to regain the rights? of course, an album that didn't recoup the advance in 1978 probably isn't going to make a lot of money today, though there are quite a few that should.
ReplyDeletewith itunes and other digital platforms, artists aren't as dependent on the labels for distribution, especially once established, so this could be a huge windfall for the likes of Emerson Lake and Palmer, but it also means that younger artists might lose out on whatever benefit signing to a label provides them. i can envison standard boilerplate evolving to waive this right, as the labels probably should have done in the late '70s.
as far as the extraterritorial effect, to the extent there's a U.S. copyright at issue i don't see why it should matter where a contract was signed, and I don't see a good basis to give rights beyond scale to session musicians if they don't control the publishing.
I know nothing of the legal aspects, but here's the Billboard Top 100 from 1978:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1978.htm
(The NYT article was more focused on albums than singles, so I think it's interesting to compare the two.)
I don't know whether I should be proud or disgusted that I made it all the way to #29 before I found a song that I couldn't recognize instantly (and that one came back to me after Youtubing).
ReplyDeleteGod, even good artists, like Abba, Roberta Flack, and Carly Simon had bad songs that year. The only song i'd miss out on never hearing is Patti Smith's version of "Because the Night," which has the advantage of being sung by a vocalist who can form consonants. The 10,000 Maniacs unplugged verison would do in a pinch. OK, Summer Nights at No. 69 (the only good song from Grease).
ReplyDeleteSome decent albums, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_in_music Zevon, Exciteable Boy; Kate Bush, Kick Inside; Costello, This Year's Model; Nick Lowe, Jesus of Cool; Last Waltz soundtrack; Willie Nelson, Stardust; Talking Heads, buildings and food; Stones, Some Girls; Blondie, Parallel Lines. And if you must, Darkness at the edge of Yawn.
I think that there's no way that an album that hasn't recouped a 1978 advance in the last 35 years is going to make money now, even with record-industry accounting. It will be funny, though, to watch how record-industry accounting affects these cases -- the record companies are going to have to explain why they are going to war over ownership of works that they claim have lost them money every year since 1978.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea whether you can contract around the termination right (seems like that's at odds with the creation of an anti-contractual termination right in the first place, but I haven't read the statute). I wouldn't expect it to have an effect on younger artists today, though. The industry has known about the termination right for 35 years and presumably would have built any workarounds in long ago. Also, I'd wager that the industry's models expect that sales and profits for new artists are heavily front-loaded, particular with the industry's current focus on developing superstars and not on nurturing artists for the long horizon. Put another way, I don't think the specter of losing the artist masters in 35 years is going to affect how the industry deals with the next Justin Bieber.
It's brewed: YMCA will be one of the first fights.
ReplyDeleteI was born in 1978, so my first thought upon reading this was "IT HASN'T BEEN 35 YEARS SINCE 1978! I'M NOT THAT OLD!" (My birthday is late in the year, so I'm in denial. I'm only 32! I'm still in my early 30s!)
ReplyDeleteMy God, the earworms!!! Aaaaa!!!
ReplyDelete(I listened to the radio a lot in 1978, it appears. Also, I now hate most of the songs that took up most of the airtime.)
1978 - the year I graduated from college and stopped buying music. You only have to look at those lists to figure out why I stopped.
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