Comments on: “Wages of Spin” (Some Contract Law Issues)

By: Lawrence Cunningham

Lawrence Cunningham — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:40:14 +0000

Nancy,

The DVD has not been released yet, but you can sign up for it at the producer’s web site, which also contains other information about this film and others:
http://www.characterdrivenfilms.com

By: Nancy

Nancy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:54:15 +0000

Do you know whether copies of the DVD are available and where I could buy one?

By: Jaundiced eye

Jaundiced eye — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:43:14 +0000

The recording industry is full of deals in which groups sign away many of their copyright rights in exchange for the recording company’s backing them. The company produces & promotes the artist in return for a share of the artist’s possible success.

If the artist is already successful when it signs the artist gets a better deal.

Aren’t these a form of aleatory contract in which the performer trades its rights for a CHANCE at success?

The Idol contestants don’t get nothing. If they get successful exposure from the show, can’t they capitalize on that success by writing or recording other songs that aren’t covered by the Idol contract?

By: Lawrence Cunningham

Lawrence Cunningham — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:23:08 +0000

TJ:

Thanks! Quite worthwhile.

By: TJ

TJ — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:17:33 +0000

It is worthwhile to note, I think, that any sense of unfairness is undermined by the Copyright Act’s provision of an inalienable right to terminating the transfer 35 years after the grant. The rationale for the termination provision is precisely to relieve the perceived unconscionability and duress of an at-the-outset assignment.