The Importance of Terminations of Copyright Transfers

With the passage of the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress created an entirely new property right under U.S. law – a right of authors and their successors to recapture ownership of valuable copyrights by “terminating” past assignments and licenses of those works after a prescribed period of time.

Terminations allow authors, their statutory successors or their estates to recapture ownership of the copyright for the remainder of the copyright term even if the original grant was for the life of the copyright and regardless of the consideration paid.

The termination of transfers in commercially successful works by an author or author’s heirs can easily be the most significant economic events in the life of those works.

Copyrights in works originally published before 1978 last for 95 years. Works whose copyright was secured in 1978 and later last for the life of the author plus 70 years. This means that, after termination, an author or an author’s heirs can recapture ownership and control over valuable copyrights for many decades to come.  

The termination provisions, however, are very technical. An author or his or her successors must exercise the right of termination within a specified period of time and must serve notices of termination that strictly comply with the statute and regulations or the right to terminate is waived forever.

Although many authors will likely forfeit rights to terminate due to inaction or ineptitude, every year new termination interests spring into existence and the importance of terminations in the intellectual property marketplace should not be underestimated.  Publishers, distributors, recording companies, producers, film studios, software based companies and any other parties granted any interest in copyrighted works need to familiarize themselves with the law and plan for the future.