Source: https://www.mediainstitute.org/2015/04/06/the-next-great-copyright-act-remember-the-authors-ii/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 05:45:27+00:00

Document:
In a previous column (Feb. 17, 2015), I urged that any copyright reform legislation that emerges from the preparations for “the next great copyright act” should ensure both authors’ attribution and economic interests. The earlier column addressed attribution; this column will consider remuneration, a matter that has lately been the subject of copyright reform in the Netherlands and France as well.
A copyright-reforming Congress might modify the termination right to remove some of the practical impediments to its implementation, including the loophole that allows the parties to rescind the original agreement and to enter into a new one, a gambit that has the effect of starting the 35-year clock running anew, without necessarily substantially improving the original deal. Better still, however, would be to ensure that the original deals provide a fair return to the authors. The United States might follow the lead of several EU countries in requiring that contracts provide proportional remuneration (royalties, instead of a lump sum) or equitable remuneration for each mode of exploitation of the work. Where the work is “for hire” or is subject to compulsory licensing, Congress might build on its own examples in the 1995 Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act (as modified in 1998), and in the 1992 Digital Audio Recording Act, and set aside at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the statutory royalties for authors and performers (including certain employee performers).
The remainder of this column will describe the recent Dutch and French legislation, as possible models for U.S. initiatives.
The law reverts rights to the author upon notifying the grantee, “if the other party to the contract does not sufficiently exploit the copyright to the work within a reasonable period after having concluded the contract, or does not sufficiently exploit the copyright after having initially performed acts of exploitation.”8 While the reversion right may not be waived, the law does not define these terms. Perhaps the dispute resolution committees the law establishes9 will resolve these and other issues that the law leaves open.
1. Bill No. 33 308. Adopted by the Dutch House of Representatives on Feb. 12, 2015. According to Prof. Dirk Visser, it is expected that the Dutch Senate will adopt the bill in the spring of 2015 and that the changes to copyright contract law will enter into force on July 1, 2015. Thanks to the law firm of Visser Schaap & Kreijger for the English translation of the Act. Available at http://www.ipmc.nl/en/topics/new-copyright-contract-law-netherlands. And many thanks to Prof. Dirk Visser for responding to my questions regarding the new Dutch law.
2. Art. 1A, modifying Art. 2 of the Dutch copyright law.
3. Compare Cohen v. Paramount Pictures, 845 F.2d 851 (9th Cir. 1988) with Boosey & Hawkes v. Disney, 145 F.3d 481 (2d Cir. 1998) (both interpreting the scope of synchronization licenses and reaching different conclusions as to the extension of the licenses to cover distribution of videocassettes to the public).
4. Dutch law on authors’ contracts, Art. 25h(1).
10. France, Code of Intellectual Property, Art. L131-2. U.S. copyright law requires that the grant of any exclusive right must be in writing and signed by the grantor, 17 U.S.C. Sec. 204(a).
11. Id., Art. L131-3. The author may grant rights for future modes of exploitation unknown at the time of the contract, but such a grant must be explicit, and must provide for a share in the profits of the new form of exploitation. Id., Art. L131-6.
13. Id., Art. 132-17-1-5 (see http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do;jsessionid=2D013356C523C269C96912FA8B0AE456.tpdjo04v_3?idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000029759371&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&dateTexte=20150208).
16. Id., Art. L. 132-17-8(8).
17. Id., Art. L. 132-17-5.
18. Ordonnance n° 2014-1348 of Nov. 2, 2014, transitional provisions, Art. 9. Arts. 11 and 12 provide for application of other author protections to contracts concluded before the law’s effective date.

References: Art. 1
 Art. 2
 v. 
 v. 
 Art. 25
 Art. 132
 Art. 9