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Songwriters everywhere would hate this. :-) I speak from the recent experience of trying to register one cd of seven songs, some of which were previously rele
by tunesmith 13y ago
Songwriters everywhere would hate this. :-) I speak from the recent experience of trying to register one cd of seven songs, some of which were previously released on my website, some of which weren't, some of which had lyrics previously published, some of which weren't. The email threads with the library of congress on how to properly register, and how to properly amend my previous registrations, are legendary. If a songwriter with 50-100 (or more) songs were given a semi-short registration expiration, they'd never get anything done.
- redblacktree 13y agoWhat if "short" is 28 years?
- derekp7 13y agoWhen I mentioned shorter, I meant shorter than "life of the author plus [bignum] years". My main concern is to figure out how to track down the original author, and also for preservation efforts (esp old films that are rotting away, and no one can archive copies of them legally if the "copyright holder" can't be tracked down, or is unknown). An alternative could be compulsory licensing of unregistered works that are beyond a given age. So that if someone uses it, and no one comes by to claim it is theirs, then all is good. But if a copyright holder shows up (and can prove ownership), then appropriate fees can be transferred at a standard rate.