Source: https://www.mediainstitute.org/2010/04/14/the-sole-right-shall-return-to-the-authors-part-iii-transitional-issues/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 02:12:23+00:00

Document:
As the NOI emphasizes, the need for an answer presses because the notice period for a termination to take effect 35 years after a grant made in 1978 will expire at the end of 2011. (The termination period runs for five years; given the minimum two-year notice period, the last opportunity to serve notices of termination respecting grants made in 1978 will be 2016.) But the impact of the NOI is not limited to grants made in 1978. Because contracts to create multiple works in the future and transfer their copyrights are not uncommon, the Copyright Office’s inquiry raises issues not only concerning the existence of any termination right for authors whose works post-date the 1976 Act’s effective date but whose agreements pre-date 1978 (the subject of the NOI). The inquiry also raises issues as to the timing of the vesting of termination rights when the creation of the works comes after (sometimes long after) the post-1978 entry into the transfer agreement.
At first blush, the trigger event is the conclusion of the contract on or after 1/1/78, and the “gap works” thus would be excluded. But the contract must be a “grant of a transfer or license of copyright”; if the work does not exist at the time the agreement is entered into, there is no “grant of a transfer or license of copyright,” because there is as yet no copyright whose transfer or license can form the subject matter of the grant. Under the 1976 Act, the federal copyright “subsists” with the creation and fixation of the work.2 The copyright does not pre-exist the creation of the work. By the same token, the statutory text ties the grant of a license of a particular right to an extant work (“a copyright”): The contract does not grant an abstract reproduction right (the text would then read “any right under copyright”), but a right to make copies with respect to a work whose copyright (or parts of it) is being transferred or licensed.
For works already in being at the time of the conclusion of a post-1977 agreement, the copyrights exist, and the grant of the transfer or license of copyright therefore is “executed” with the conclusion of the agreement: The time clock starts running from the date of the contract. Thus, there is no gap between signature and “execution.” But when the agreement provides for the future creation of works, the above analysis indicates that the termination time clock starts running not from the date of the agreement, but from the date of creation. This start date may, however, pose practical problems. The date the contract was signed provides a readily ascertainable starting point for calculating when to send a notice of termination. The date of creation of the work may prove more elusive. While the statute offers evidence of Congress’s expectation that the author should be able to identify the year date of creation,7 the Sec. 203 termination clock starts ticking on the actual date. Authors’ abilities to recall or document the month and day on which they completed creating a work may be more uncertain. But this objection could equally well apply to oral or inferred-from-conduct non-exclusive licenses: The date of their “execution” may be equally if not more unsusceptible to reliable documentation, yet the statute clearly provides for the termination of such licenses.
Timing termination from the date of creation when the contract was entered into before the work was created seems consistent with the general structure and policy of statutory termination rights. The text of the statute8 and its legislative history amply demonstrate Congress’s intent that authors should enjoy enforceable termination rights. The statute should be interpreted to cover as many works as possible (other than works made for hire). In the case of pre-1978 agreements to transfer rights in works not created until 1978 or later, no creative interpretation is even necessary: The plain words of the statute bring these works within the scope of the Sec. 203 termination right.
In the case of post-1978 agreements for works yet to be created at the time of the contract, timing termination rights from the date of creation, rather than the date the agreement was entered into, can make a significant practical difference. Suppose, for example, a contract entered into in 1980 in which the author agrees to write and transfer publication and other copyright rights in four books. The author writes the works over the next 20 years, delivering them in 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000 respectively. If the termination time clock runs from 1980, then the author may terminate the grant of all rights in all books in 2020; the publisher will have owned the rights not for the earlier of 35 years from publication or 40 years from “execution of the grant,” as provided in Sec. 203(a)(3), but for 35, 30, 25, and 20 years respectively.9 If the time clock runs from the creation of each work, then the publisher will have the rights for at least 35 years for each book.
If one interprets Sec. 203 as assuring publishers 35-40 years of quiet enjoyment of the transferred rights under copyright (the publisher may, of course, agree to grant the rights back much earlier, for example through an out-of-print clause), then designating an “execution” date for the grant that will shorten the interval before termination would seem inconsistent with the statutory scheme. On the other hand, if the publisher offers a contract that commits the author to create and transfer rights in several works over the course of time, perhaps the publisher has assumed the risk that the later the author delivers the contracted-for works, the less time the publisher will have to enjoy the grant before the author’s termination rights vest.
* Thanks for ideas and research assistance to Mark Musico, Columbia Law School Class of 2011, and for additional ideas to Robert W. Clarida, Esq.
1. 75 Fed. Reg. 15390-91 (March 29, 2010). The problem did not go unnoticed at the time of the 1976 Act’s enactment. See Marybeth Peters, General Guide to the Copyright Act of 1976, at 6:5-6:6 & ex. 1 (Sept. 1977).
2. 17 U.S.C. § 102(a).
3. 1 William W. Story, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts § 22 (5th ed. 1874); see also Restatement 2d of Contracts § 3 cmt. a (2007) (“The word ‘agreement’ contains no implication that legal consequences are or are not produced. It applies to transactions executed on one or both sides, and also to those that are wholly executory.”).
4. See, e.g., Korman v. HBC Florida, 182 F.2d 1291 (11th Cir. 1999).
5. See, e.g., 17 U.S.C. § 101 (commissioned works for hire); id. § 113(d)(1)(B) (VARA waivers); id. § 204(a) (signed writing required for transfer of exclusive rights); id. § 205(a) (recordation of “signed document”); id. § 205(e) (priority between conflicting transfers); id. § 304(c)(4) (termination of grant executed by persons other than the author).
6. But see Register of Copyrights, Copyright Law Revision Pt. 6, Supplementary Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., at 73 (Comm. Print 1965): “The [Sec. 203] right of termination would not be retroactive. It would apply only to transfers and licenses after the new law comes into effect.” This language does not, however, address the question when the transfer becomes effective.
7. 17 U.S.C. § 409(7) (application for registration “shall include” “the year in which creation of the work was created”).
8>. E.g., 17 U.S.C. § 203(a)(5) (“Termination of the grant may be effected notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary….”).
Note that this argument assumes that a “grant” or “transfer” of copyright may be executed before a work is written and therefore before it enters statutory copyright under the new Act. The Register’s Report accepts the publishers’ rationale, which suggests that the Copyright Office may believe that the termination period of a grant should be calculated from the date that the agreement is executed and not the date that the copyright interest is transferred. For unwritten (or otherwise unfixed) works this makes sense because the date that the work is fixed (and copyright is created and transferred) will be impossible to determine.
Melville Nimmer, Termination of Transfers Under the Copyright Act of 1976, 125 U. Pa. L. Rev. 947, 975 (1977).

References: § 102
 § 22
 § 3
 v. 
 § 101
 § 113
 § 204
 § 205
 § 205
 § 304
 § 409
 § 203