Re: Transfer of ownership

From: Kevin Grierson <kgrierson[_at_]wilsav.com>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 15:50:27 -0400

It's important to remember that (apart from the Visual Artists' Rights Act) U.S. Copyright law does not recognize the right of attribution. And IMHO, it would be a big mistake to allow the use of the Lanham Act as a substitute. As the S.Ct. noted in Dastar, such a use could have the effect of permitting an author or company owning rights in a copyrighted work to maintain control over that work long after the copyright has expired (I leave for another day the question of whether any extant copyrights in the U.S. will ever expire, given Congress' proclivities to extend the term every time Steamboat Willie is in danger of entering the public domain).

Kevin Grierson

Kevin W. Grierson
Willcox & Savage, P.C.
One Commercial Place, Ste. 1800
Norfolk, Virginia 23510

mailto:kgrierson[_at_]wilsav.com
ph: 757/628-5603 fx: 757/628-5566
http://wilsav.com

>>> daca[_at_]loc.gov 05/27/04 09:19AM >>>
I would like to think that, too. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult case to make after the Supreme Court's ruling last year in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 123 S. Ct. 2041, 2003 WL 21251442 (U.S.).

>>> kirk.johnsen[_at_]worldnet.att.net 05/25/04 8:47 AM >>> I would think that Section 43a of the Lanham Act (passing off) might be relevant.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Barrow" <edward[_at_]copyweb.co.uk> To: "CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property" <CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org>
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 12:35 PM
Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: Transfer of ownership

> On Monday 24 May 2004 14:28, David Carson wrote:
> >
> > On Wednesday 19 May 2004 17:40, Carol Busby wrote:
> > > Assume Author has transferred all rights in her work to Publisher.
> > > Included in contract is a clause that says Publisher has the right
to
> > > license anyone to use all or part of the work.
> > >
> > > If Publisher then prints copies of the work with Publisher's name
on
> > > it as author, what causes of action does Author have, if any?

>

> to which I replied (? sarcastically?)
> > It would lie in that part of US law which implements Article
6bis(1) of
> > the
> > Berne Convention...

>

> to which David Carson replied:
> > Which part of the law is that?

>
> Which is a good question; my speciality is UK, not US copyright, so I
do
not
> know the answer, but I do know that the US is a party to the Paris
Act of
> the Berne Convention and therefore should, somewhere in its law, have
> provisions giving a cause of action to the Author in Carol Busby's
original
> hypothetical.... but perhaps in my skim through the WIPO website I
have
> missed something.

>
>

> --
> Edward Barrow
> Copyright Consultant
> edward[_at_]copyweb.co.uk
> ***Important: see http://www.copyweb.co.uk/email/ for important
information
> about the legal status of this email

>


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Visit the CNI-COPYRIGHT e-mail list archive at <https://mail2.cni.org/Lists/CNI-COPYRIGHT/>. Received on Thu May 27 2004 - 23:50:27 GMT