A most interesting article here that touches on who actually owns the rights to most recordings.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20001123.htmlUniversal and MP3.com have settled their differences, and the court entered it as a judgment — with MP3.com agreeing to pay Universal $ 54 million for its role in the copyright infringement of thousands of sound recordings.
One might assume the settlement was simply a smart deal by businesspeople: MP3.com realized the copyright law consequences of its sharing system were unavoidable; Universal was pleased to receive a substantial sum that would probably deter not only MP3.com, but also every other music website, from illegally using copyrighted content.
The final move that brought Universal and MP3.com to the negotiating table was arcane, but decisive. Universal proposed to introduce, at the portion of the trial dedicated to proving damages, thousands of copyright registrations to prove ownership of the recordings at issue. This would have been an unremarkable move, except that all of these registrations were filed under the theory that Universal — not the artist who had made the recording — was the legal author of each work. Universal claimed authorship by invoking the "work-made-for-hire" statute, which has the effect of shifting authorship from artists to their employers.
Featured artists like Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, and others immediately organized and complained, through the Recording Artists Coalition. They rightly argued that Universal, along with most other recording companies, was claiming more than the work-made-for-hire statute permits.
I am glad this has been publicly aired once again as it shows the BS put forward by the recording industry in many cases fraudulently claiming ownership of something they do not own.
I hope you can all see now why I take a hard attitude to these theives that rip off the artist and public alike.
