Thursday, March 14, 2013

Rule of law

The magority of the questions i asked got fairly simplistic answers. when it came to contracts she told me the best way is to have a lawyer draw up a fill in the blank template contract when it comes to bands and new hire agreements. you also need a work for hire agreement for all new hires
“if the parties sign a work-made-for-hire agreement the copyright will be owned by the commissioning party as long as the work falls within one of the statutory catagories of commissioned works that can qualify”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 236) 
 She also said that when or if i do ever sell my business that i will need to contact a lawyer to look over all paperwork and agreements signed to make sure that i am getting all my rights depending on what i am requesting and what the settlement will be. She said if this contract is ever breached that i do have rights to sue, but depending on conflict of interests and what the agreement was in the beggining and how much it is being breached and how fair the agreement was to begin with.

When it came to music sampling and if a 5 second clip constituted a lawsuit or not she said it depends on if it was altered so much that it no longer sounds like the original then i have no grounds for a lawsuit,

“music sampling sounds can be digitally captured and then modified and mixed to a point that the result has very little resemblance to any of the original material.”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 244)
but if its just straight from my song then yea i have grounds for a lawsuit.

“any unauthorized use of copyrighted work that violates the copyright owners exclusive rights in the work constitutes infringement.”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 209)
“the owner may file a lawsuit against the infringer for damages in a federal court.”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 209)
I asked her about whether or not when a song is recorded in my studio but i'm not aware of it and its by one of my employees she said that since they are under a work for hire agreement then they are liable to not break or infringe that agreement. if they do its infringement upon the work for hire agreement. 
“ A copyright claimant is the party considered to be the basic owner of the copyright in a work being registered… an employer whose employee created the work in the scope of employment. A party who commissioned a work made for hire, as defined in the copyright act.”  (Patent copyright & trademark pg. 236)
“if the parties sign a work-made-for-hire agreement the copyright will be owned by the commissioning party as long as the work falls within one of the statutory catagories of commissioned works that can qualify”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 236)
i asked her about by the rights to sample a song she said i need to write a letter to whomever owns the copyright to the song or licensing  agreements and write them a letter of request of artwork/lyrics.

“when a copyright owner wishes to commercially exploit the work the owner typically transfers one or more of these rights to the publisher or other entity who will be responsible for getting the work to market”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 244)“an exclusive license, which must be in writing is a contract in which a copyright owner authorizes another person or entity (called the licensee) to exclusively exercise one or more of the rights (or portion of such rights) that belong to the owner under the copyright." (Patent copyright & trademark pg. 244)
I then asked her about the filling out of contracts when it comes to recording bands she said that yes before i record a band there should be paper work for either a collaboration when it comes to the copyright or a work for hire agreement/musician assignment agreement.
i also included the question i had for including myself into projects that i record and she said that if its a collaboration that each party can own one of the rights.
“a party who commsioned a work made for hire”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 236) 
“the copyright owner can separately license sub parts of each right”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 236)
i then asked her about what actions to take when a tv or radio outruns their limit on my music/product and she said it would be then a violation of copyright or an infringement and i then have a basis to sue the company for damages.
“ a lawsuit brought against someone who uses a copyrighted expression without permission is commonly known as an infringement action.”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 209)
“the owner may file a lawsuit against the infringer for damages in a federal court.”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 209 )
the actual first question i asked was if someone were to not pay me fully for a recording what would be my recourse? she of course said that i would obviously take them to court. and that they wouldnt have full copyright rights until they paid me fully and that i would take them to court for the damages and the court should find me in favor due to the fact that i am the person who was shorted.

“ the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that collective work in the same series” (Patent copyright & trademark pg. 201) “copyright owner also refers to as person or entity who owns one or more of the five exclusive rights that make up the whole copyright, and who therefore has a right to sue infringers of that right”(Patent copyright & trademark pg. 201)  

 

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