Re: copyright renewals

On Tue, 04 Jan 2000, S. Martin Keleti <keleti[_at_]manifesto.com> wrote:
>
> A story in this morning's Los Angeles Times caught my attention:
>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20000104/t000000972.html
>
> The details which would help make sense of the "arcane legal issues,"
> however, were lacking. If anyone on the list knows more about the
> matter and would care to enlighten us, please share your insights.

They may be referring to the fact that for works published before 1964, the renewal right is considered a separate "estate" in the work. If the Author died before the renewal right vested, she would only have had the right to encumber the first term as it were, not the 2nd term, the renewal term. So, her will directive that the daughter further distribute the works to the library would be ineffective. If the Author had died after the renewal period vested, and had herself renewed the copyright in the works, she would have had the right to say what should happen to the works during the renewal term.

Others on the list may know more about this "arcane" concept. I have only had to deal with it once. I don't know that this would be a winning argument in this case, just that it appears from the article that this might be an argument that the publisher and daughter's legatee's daughter could make, depending on when the works were published, when the Author died, etc. It does appear that she died in the late 50's, which would mean that her works were all published before 1964.

Georgia Harper
University of Texas System
Office of General Counsel
Gharper[_at_]utsystem.edu
512 499-4462 (voice) /4523 (fax)

Visit the Copyright Crash Course at
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm Received on Wed Jan 05 2000 - 16:43:12 GMT