On 05.12.2006 Darcy James Argue wrote:
Wow. I can't agree with this at all, especially with regard to sound recordings, where most often it's the record company, not the artist, that owns the copyright on the recording.
That's a problem with the contract between the artist and the company, not with the copyright legislation.
If a record company decides to remove a recording from the market (or goes under, or whatever), then I think copyright on that work should revert to the artist, who can then do whatever she chooses with it. Currently, this is something that one has to negotiate with the record company, and they are most often extremely reluctant to include this kind of provision. It can also be difficult to get them to honor this provision even if it *is* included in the contract -- this is what happened with Knitting Factory Records. Artists who had out-of-print recordings on that label had to sue in order to get their masters back, even though it was explicitly spelled out in the contract that once a recording had gone out of print, the masters must automatically revert to the artist.
Again, if the artist, for whatever reasons, decided to transfer his copyright to the company, the company has every right to do with the recording whatever they choose to do. The problem is the contract, not the copyright.
I don't believe corporations ought to have the right to unilaterally remove a recording from the market without the consent of the artist.
Then don't sign the contract. You won't get a recording out on a larger label either, but this has nothing to do with copyright legislation.
I own a little CD label (well, I own half of it) and I certainly would not want any law in place where when I, for whatever reason, let a CD go out of print (whether temporarily or permanently) anyone else can come along and reissue it. Yet this is precisely what you are asking for.
I agree that a lot of things are wrong in the relationship between artists and record companies, but that has nothing to do with copyrights themselves, in fact if anything copyright legislation would have to become much stricter to prevent this.
Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
