How Long Does A Copyright Last?

The life of a U.S. copyright has changed considerably throughout the last 100 years, and many people are still confused about the rules, which were last changed in 1998. This article is my attempt to briefly cover the history and simplify the explanation and terms along with a snapshot of the timing through an illustration. This article won’t cover every exception, (including works made for hire), but it will provide the standard lengths of copyright for normal songs which are not created as “works for hire”. (I will cover the definition of “works for hire” in an upcoming article).

Prior to the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909, the term of a copyright was 28 years. That was it. The 1909 Act extended the term by adding another 28 years, called a “Renewal”, as long as the appropriate owner filed a valid renewal application in a timely manner. If the renewal wasn’t filed properly in the 28th year, the copyright went into the public domain. (One famous case of the renewal not being filed was for the classic movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”, which officially went into the public domain in 1974, and is why the movie was shown countless times on various stations until certain owners asserted other rights of protection, but that’s another story).

The Copyright Act of 1976 (effective January 1, 1978) changed the terms again by adding an additional 19 years to those copyrights already in their first or second term as of that date (which we’ll call “pre 78” copyrights), and gave them a life of 75 years total. No additional registration was necessary in order to qualify for this 19 year extension. At that same time, the law stated that any copyrights effective after 1978 (what we will call “post 78” copyrights) would go by a different set of rules. Those rules said the life of the copyright will be 50 years after the death of the last surviving author. And further, no additional registrations or renewals would be necessary for these “post 78” copyrights to extend for their full life.

But the terms changed again. In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), or what many call the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. (Others refer to it as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, as Disney was a big lobbying effort behind this act in order to save the copyright for Mickey Mouse, which would have expired in 2003.) This act automatically extended the term for “pre 78” copyrights from 75 years to 95 years, and it extended “post 78” copyrights another 20 years to “life of the last surviving author plus 70 years”. (Illustration below)

And those are the rules today. Songs registered or first published after 1978 continue under copyright protection for the life of the last surviving author plus 70 years. Non work-for-hire copyrights published or registered earlier than 1978 are protected for a total of 95 years from the date of their first publication or copyright registration, whichever occurs earlier.

So when you are looking at using an old song, check the copyright date and add 95 years before you assume it is public domain. And if you are a writer, this gives an entirely new motivation to helping young writers by co-writing with them. Their youth can work to your (or your heir’s) advantage.

John Barker
ClearBox Rights, LLC

^{© 2013 John Barker. All rights reserved. Information contained in this Blog is of a general nature and should not be considered or relied on as legal advice. Any reader of this Blog who has legal matters related to information addressed in this Blog should consult with an experienced attorney. This Blog contains no warranties or representations that the information contained in it is true or accurate in all respects or that it is the most current or complete information on the subject matter covered. John Barker is President and CEO of ClearBox Rights, LLC.}

Is Copyright Registration Necessary? (Part 3)

It is possible you could be missing certain royalties for your songs because you haven’t registered the copyright in the U.S. Copyright Office.

In Part 1, I answered the question, “Is copyright registration necessary for copyright protection”? The answer is a simple “no”. Copyright protection exists as soon as the song is put into any tangible form. In Part 2, I went over some of the advantages of registering your copyrights, which are 1) making a public record, 2) creating “prima facie evidence”, 3) the necessity in order to file an infringement suit, and 4) the ability to receive statutory damages and attorney’s fees. In this next and final Part 3 on registrations, I’ll address the ability, or lack thereof, to receive certain royalties for your copyrights.

The “Compulsory License” was first introduced in the Copyright Act of 1909, with the intent of making licenses more easily available for mechanical piano rolls, and the newly introduced phonorecord cylinders and discs. However, the practice throughout the years has been that most users of copyrights would negotiate a mechanical license, rather than jump through the numerous legal hoops defined in Section 115 necessary for such a compulsory license. (We’ll get into the details and terms of compulsory licenses in a later blog). The compulsory license was a little used clause for most of 100 years. In fact, Mary Beth Peters, the acting Register of Copyrights, testified to a subcommittee of Congress in 2004 that “Up to this day, very few notices of intention (for compulsory licenses) are filed with the Copyright Office”.

Then along came the increased activities of digital music delivery sites. With these digital providers attempting to clear millions of songs in order to launch their services, they began hiring “License Agents” to file for and administer compulsory licenses for their digital music offerings. They did this by having the License Agents send a “Notice of Intention” (NOI’s) of the use in order to comply with the compulsory license as defined in the Copyright Law.

However, a little noticed clause in Section 115(c)(1) says, “To be entitled to receive royalties under a compulsory license, the copyright owner must be identified in the registration or other public records of the Copyright Office. The owner is entitled to royalties for phonorecords made and distributed after being so identified, but is not entitled to recover for any phonorecords previously made and distributed.”

So, according to the law, even though your song has been published (which is a requirement before a compulsory license is available), and you may have earned significant income from your song, and even though your song may be well known and identified in many public records, until your copyright is registered in some manner with the copyright office, you are not legally “entitled” to receive royalties from compulsory licenses; or even to recover past royalties earned after you register the copyright.

Having the song registered in the Copyright Office does not necessarily mean it has to have a copyright registration filed. But the law does say, “…the copyright owner must be identified in the registration or other public records of the Copyright Office.” Those “other public records” could include transfers of ownership, license agreements, termination of transfers, or other records where you, the owner of the copyright, are identified. But the law is clear that these public records must be filed in the Copyright Office in order for you (the copyright owner) to be “entitled” to receive these compulsory license royalties.

So, a song could be a number one hit on radio, or even number one on iTunes downloads, and yet have royalties legally withheld from any streaming service (Spotify, Rhapsody, etc.) which licenses their content through the practice of compulsory licenses, until the copyright and owner information has been registered in some manner in the Copyright Office.

This should be pretty good motivation for copyright owners to register, in some manner, their copyright and information in a timely manner, at least after the song has been released in some commercial manner, making it eligible for compulsory licenses.

I would love to hear any thoughts and comments from others in the industry about this practice.

John Barker
ClearBox Rights, LLC

“Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.” – Daniel Boorstin

© 2013 John Barker. All rights reserved. Information contained in this Blog is of a general nature and should not be considered or relied on as legal advice. Any reader of this Blog who has legal matters related to information addressed in this Blog should consult with an experienced attorney. This Blog contains no warranties or representations that the information contained in it is true or accurate in all respects or that it is the most current or complete information on the subject matter covered. John Barker is President and CEO of ClearBox Rights, LLC.

Is Copyright Registration Necessary? – (Part 2)

In Part 1, we answered the question, “Is copyright registration necessary for copyright protection”? The answer is a simple “no”. Copyright protection exists as soon as the song is put into any tangible form. However, there are advantages to registering your copyrights when it comes to defending your work, which I’ll address in this Part 2.

Before I dive into that, I want to clarify something. The act of “registering a copyright” (on Form PA) is different from “recording a document” related to a copyright. The former is used to register the actual copyright, showing the authors and then current owners. The latter is simply to put in public record a document related to the copyright, which can be a transfer of ownership of the copyright, an assignment, a termination of transfer, or other types of actions. A chain of title in a copyright is found through a string of recorded documents, and not through the registration of the copyright. In other words, each time a copyright is assigned or sold, a new document may be recorded to substantiate the action. But under normal situations, a Registration of Copyright is necessary only one time, which is what we’re talking about here.

Now, on to the advantages of registering a copyright, in which I believe there are two primary areas. The first is the act of making the copyright available in public searches. While the copyright office may not be the most commonly used site people use to search for copyrights, it is arguably the safest for accurate information and the most recognized. So to make a public record of a copyright, and provide a way for others to find the copyright and the owner’s information, you may want to register it. But the real advantages to registering a copyright are in cases where you need to defend the copyright against any kind of misuse or infringement, which is the second primary area that I’ll break that down into three parts.

First, a registration becomes what is called “prima facie evidence”, which means evidence that is legally sufficient to establish a case or fact. In the Copyright Act, Section 410(c) reads, “In any judicial proceedings, the certificate of a registration made before or within five years after first publication of the work shall constitute prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.” Other techniques in verifying your copyright, such as mailing it to yourself, or keeping recorded copies with dates, or other means of collecting witnesses to the fact that this was your copyright as of a certain date, can still be fine methods of eventually proving the facts. However, none may be as effective, or at least as easily proven and acceptable in the courts, as “prima facie evidence”.

Second, in the event your copyright is infringed, you cannot take the case to court until the copyright has been registered [Section 411(a)]. If you are aware of an infringement, you may immediately register the copyright. The valid date of registration will be the date stamped by the Copyright Office that your registration was received, not when the document was finally processed, which could be months later, (as long as the registration was ultimately acceptable by the Copyright Office).

Third, if you prevail in the infringement case, you are eligible, in most cases, to be awarded statutory damages and costs and attorney’s fees only if the song has been registered, and only for the infringements which took place after the effective date of registration, unless you happened to register the song within 3 months of the first publication [Section 412]. (By the way, statutory damages can be as high as $150,000.00 per infringement for “willful” infringements).

So there are advantages to registering the copyright in the U.S. Copyright Office. Are those advantages worthy of spending $35.00 – $65.00 per registration for all songs? That answer is dependent on your frame of mind and approach to these kinds of legal issues. I would say it is not a great danger to not register all your copyrights, but there is certainly a level of risk associated. I do know that most publishers and successful songwriters only register their copyrights once they are published, if at all. And if your initial decision is to not register the copyright, it can always be done at a later date. You just might miss some damages and awards for wrongful uses prior to that registration, but how likely is it that something like this might occur with your songs? Much like buying insurance, you should weigh the cost of security with the likelihood of an unpleasant event occurring. But now, at least you should be making a more intelligent choice based on your better understanding of the complex copyright law, and the risks and benefits associated with registering your copyrights or not.

Are there other advantages to copyright registrations? There are, related to what is called “compulsory licensed uses” and collecting certain royalties, which we’ll address in Part 3 next week.

John Barker
ClearBox Rights, LLC

“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” – Wilson Mizner, US playwright, author (1876-1933)

© 2012 John Barker. All rights reserved. Information contained in this Blog is of a general nature and should not be considered or relied on as legal advice. Any reader of this Blog who has legal matters related to information addressed in this Blog should consult with an experienced attorney. This Blog contains no warranties or representations that the information contained in it is true or accurate in all respects or that it is the most current or complete information on the subject matter covered. John Barker is President and CEO of ClearBox Rights, LLC.