A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

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.