Re: benefits of the public domain and limited copyright terms?

On Wed, 17 May 2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
>
> "...Should the author's rights be divided, to infinity,
> among all his heirs?. . . How shall one unite so many
> divers consents, when it may be necessary to treat?
> Who will undertake to find so many scattered individuals,
> to regulate their respective interests, and to bring
> their different wills to agree?

An interesting illustration of this complexity is found in _Capano Music v. Myers Music, Inc._, 605 F.Supp 692. "Rock Around the Clock" began its first term of copyright in 1953. Freedman, a co-author, died in 1962, leaving his half interest in the song to his widow, also his executrix. They had no children, and when she died three days before the first date the copyright could be renewed, her will left her copyright interests to her sister, Goldstein. The other co-author renewed the copyright in 1981. The question was who owned the Freedman-Goldstein half interest? Following s. 304(a), the court concluded that rights to renew could not vest in Freedman because he was dead, nor his spouse/widow (also dead), nor his executrix/widow (still dead), so they "passed. fourth, to whoever was Max Freedman's next of kin on vesting day." 605 F.Supp. at 696 Wouldn't that be fun to track?

This example from an interesting article by Francis. M. Nevins, Jr., "The Magic Kingdom of Will-Bumping: Where Estates Law and Copyright Law Collide", 35 J. Copyr. Soc. 77 (1987).

Michael J. O'Connor
<mjoconor[_at_]erols.com> Received on Thu May 18 2000 - 15:38:21 GMT