garry’s subposthaven

Arbitrary deadlines are, in my opinion, the things that kill most of us. An arbitrary deadline is a date that you circled on the calendar because you wanted to launch something at that time. For no real reason. You are launching a product that will help people wash laundry better than before, you chose June 16th because that is your mother's birthday and that woman could wash socks like nobody's business. Working backwards from that date, you decided that staff had to be hired by February 2. It's Jan 15 and you still haven't found the right people, you're totally stressed, turning into an asshole and it's getting ugly. (And everyone in your house has Swine Flu and you really don't think you have time to care for them right now.)

“The termination that’s going to be coming up is going to be a big problem for the record companies and publishers,” said attorney Greg Eveline of Eveline Davis & Phillips Entertainment Law.

“It’s written into the statute,” said entertainment lawyer Robert Bernstein. “It’s just a matter of time.”

The Copyright Act includes two sets of rules for how this works. If an artist or author sold a copyright before 1978 (Section 304), they or their heirs can take it back 56 years later. If the artist or author sold the copyright during or after 1978 (Section 203), they can terminate that grant after 35 years. Assuming all the proper paperwork gets done in time, record labels could lose sound recording copyrights they bought in 1978 starting in 2013, 1979 in 2014, and so on. For 1953-and-earlier music, grants can already be terminated.

The Eagles plan to file grant termination notices by the end of the year, according to Law.com. “It’s going to happen,” said Eveline. “Just think of what the Eagles are doing when they get back their whole catalog. They don’t need a record company now…. You’ll be able to go to Eaglesband.com (updated) and get all their songs. They’re going to do it; it’s coming up.”

This is awesome! Artists are going to get the cut they deserve, and middlemen get squeezed out of existence. *high five*

Really interesting breakdown. Not a whole lot going in the yellow-green and the magenta, eh?

When you work for others, you are at their mercy. They own your work; they own you. Your creative spirit is squashed. What keeps you in such positions is a fear of having to sink or swim on your own. Instead you should have a greater fear of what will happen to you if you remain dependent on others for power. Your goal in every maneuver in life must be ownership, working the corner for yourself. When it is yours, it is yours to lose -- you are more motivated, more creative, more alive. The ultimate power in life is to be completely self-reliant, completely yourself.