Tragedy of the anticommons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tragedy of the anticommons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “WKRP in Cincinnati was one of the most popular syndicated sitcoms of all time, and many television shows from that era have been successfully released on DVD. However, it is unlikely that a DVD release of WKRP will be available in the near future. When it was a television program, an agreement was in place between television producers and music licensing organizations such as ASCAP and BMI wherein a standard licensing fee was paid for each song that was played on a television show. As such, the producers could determine how much money would be paid for their use of music clips and budget accordingly. However, there is no similar standard agreement for use of music on DVD’s (which ASCAP and BMI do not control), and the producers are now faced with the prospect of negotiating individually with several dozen composers.”
This was the saddest thing that I’ve heard in a long time.
Most of those composers don’t own the copyright to their own music, so it’s not just a matter of negotiating with several dozen composers. First they have to find the copyright owner, and there’s no easy way to do that. In many cases, there is no clear copyright owner, but that doesn’t make it legal to use a work.
When copyright was introduced, it required some effort to register exclusive rights to a work. Today, everything falls under copyright by default simply by being published, so all work is exclusively owned unless otherwise stated. About a month ago, Lawrence Lessig argued a case before the 9th circuit court that such a drastic change violates the first amendment, and should be reversed. So there’s some hope still.
Comment by OrangeBeard — December 16, 2006 @ 7:49 pm
Xanax….
Xanax….
Trackback by Xanax. — February 26, 2007 @ 5:39 am