Creative Commons has a new “Termination of Transfer” tool that could change the way that copyrights work in America forever. If you’re a creator who’s signed over your copyrights, the law lets you get them back from your publisher, label or studio 35 years later, no matter what your contract says. However, the process for reclaiming your rights is incredibly complicated, so practically no one can take advantage of it.
Enter the Termination of Transfer tool — a tool to simplify the process, so that anyone can reclaim the rights to her work as easily as you can add a Creative Commons license to it.
This means that all those old, out-of-print songs, books, stories, movies and so on can be returned to their creators and freed from the vaults of the absentee landlords that run the world’s culture industry.
Briefly, the U.S. Copyright Act gives creators a mechanism by which they can reclaim rights that they sold or licensed away many years ago. Often artists sign away their rights at the start of their careers when they lack sophisticated negotiating experience, access to good legal advice or any knowledge of the true value of their work so they face an unequal bargaining situation. The “termination of transfer” provisions are intended to give artists a way to rebalance the bargain, giving them a “second bite of the apple.” By allowing artists to reclaim their rights, the U.S. Congress hoped that authors could renegotiate old deals or negotiate new deals on stronger footing (and hopefully with greater remuneration too!!). A longer explanation of the purpose of the “termination of transfer” provisions is set out in this FAQ.
Despite this admirable Congressional intention, the provisions are very complex and have not been frequently used. CC’s tool is intended to go some way towards redressing that.
(via Lessig)