[dvd-discuss] Gaming the system (was: Specific ironies of the CTEA)

[Kurt Hockenbury <khockenb(at)stevens-tech.edu>]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, John Zulauf wrote:

> **this is subject to wondrous abuse, have my child preview my creative
> work, accept one of his/her changes (with no prompting, honest?) and
> list them as a co-author.  I'm surprised that no mogul offspring has
> their name on a work.  Of course they could be listed under pen names...

I've suggested that possibility before.

Another "cheat" of the US copyright system occurred to me today, due to the
timing difference between works for hire (75 pre-Bono, 95 at the moment) and
works of authorship (life+50 pre-Bono, life+70 after).[*]

If the author is willing to bet that he will live less than 25 more years, he
should incorporate, and publish all his future works as "works for hire" of
the corporation.  This would buy his heirs (25-remain lifespan) extra years
under copyright.

Kurt.

[*] For that matter, this discrepancy means that in the case of music, where
the song and the recording have seperate copyrights, the song belonging to the
author and the recording to the studio, the two expire at different times
unless the author dies exactly 25 years after recording.  If the author dies
earlier, the song enters the public domain before his or her recording does,
by up to 25 years.  On the other hand, if the author recorded young (say 15)
but lives a long time (100, like Strom Thurman), then the recording will enter
the public domain sixty years before the song does.