copyrights and wrongs

[Klezcorner <Klezcorner...>]

The Copyright Act Issue

Thursday May 25 03:47 PM EDT 

Prince Weighs In On The Copyright Act Issue
(5/25/00, 1 p.m. ET) - Today (May 25) in Washington, D.C., several artists 
will appear before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on 
Intellectual Property, which is discussing an amendment to the 1976
Copyright 
Act that would bar artists from ever owning the rights to their recordings.

Sheryl Crow, country star Clint Black, and members of Fleetwood Mac are all 
expected to testify, and other supporters include Don Henley and Billy Joel.

Not surprisingly, Prince is another musician who stands firmly against any 
change in the rights of creators to own their work.At last week's press 
conference in New York City, Prince talked about the revision to the 
Copyright Act and the effect it would have on his fellow performers. 
"Discussions are being held in Washington regarding the 'work for hire' 
clause record companies instituted without debate," he said. "This states 
that all sound recordings will become the sole ownership of said companies 
for all time. Do we really need to discuss this? Copyrights are supposed to 
revert back to the writer after a set number of years. This is our form of 
Social Security -- a form of Social Security. Not the best, of course, but 
it's as close as an artist will ever get to a golden parachute."

The original act provided for the return of the masters to the artists after

a period of 35 years -- meaning some of the seminal recordings of the late 
'60s and '70s are due to revert to their creators over the next few years. 
However, due to lobbying by the Recording Industry Association of America 
(RIAA), an amendment was slipped into the Intellectual Property and 
Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999 that re-defines recordings as
works 
for hire and therefore owned in perpetuity by the record companies.

Aside from Crow, Black, and the Fleetwood Mac members, another person who 
will attend the hearing is Columbia University law professor Jane Ginsburg, 
the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

- -- Bruce Simon, New York

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