Re: Copyright Registration Question

From: Keith Tabor <ket354[_at_]yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 09:15:01 -0700 (PDT)

First, find a different attorney. You will need an experienced copyright litigator for this. Furthermore, you will want someone who will know how to use the evil DMCA to your advantage, if appropriate. Even if it is just to get the publisher to pay attention and start to negotiate.

Second, be prepared to spend a lot of money to get this worked out. A LOT of money. The $30 times 250 works ($7500) would not cover the retainer for most of the attorneys who have enough experience to handle this matter for you. Hopefully you can find one who is more reasonably priced. Depending on your market, an attorney will charge from between $150 to over $400 per hour to work on this sort of matter. By the way, you want to make sure the publisher is solvent enough to be worth going after. Spend your hard earned money simply to push them over the line into bankruptcy does you no good.

Third, do what your attorney says, not what a list of well intentioned, very experienced professionals, who are nonetheless ignorant of your specific situation, tell you to do. There are many factors to consider and you need someone to consider all of them before you move forward.

Relatively speaking your question is a simple one and you may want to use what you learn from this list as background knowledge as you interview prospective attorneys. Do their explanations of what you should do make sense in light of what you know about copyright law? If they can't convince you of what needs to be done how are they going to convince a judge, jury, or the publishers?

Best of luck,

Keith

• jimnorcross[_at_]popmail.com wrote:
  > I have a question about copyright registrations and
  > whether I should register my material as a
  > collection or individually.
  >
  > Background - For several years I wrote music reviews
  > for a magazine, about 250 in all. I sold only
  > one-time print rights, which they acknowledge, but I
  > never registered the pieces. Last month I found they
  > had resold/redistributed my content to 10 other
  > publications, plus resold copies of my reviews off
  > their own web site. I've sent a cease and desist,
  > plus pay up letter, but both have been ignored.
  > Filing a case is inevitable.
  >
  > I know I will have to register before I can take it
  > to court. But at $30 a piece, and over 250 pieces,
  > that gets expensive. I want to make sure I do the
  > right thing because, at least on their site, DMCA
  > violations are involved where they placed their
  > copyright on my pieces.
  >
  > My question is - can I register each year (about 6
  > years of 40 reviews per year) as a
  > collection/collective, and still be able to sue for
  > each individual piece? Or do I have to register each
  > individual piece? Have there been any cases that
  > brought up this issue? Even the attorney I
  > approached was unsure about which direction to take.
  > Thanks for any info someone might have on this
  > issue.
  >
  > ....................................
  > Get your own free email account from
  > http://www.popmail.com
  >
  

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