Copyright Talk

So you sold or licensed the rights to a copyrighted work. Congratulations! Now comes the part that is hard for most creative folks - keeping track of the project and your payments. Whether you handle it yourself, or whether you hire an administrative service to do it for you, it must be done. This is remarkably important when dealing with copyright licenses and waivers and agreements, because the “tail” on these things can be oh so very long, especially in light of the technological explosion we’ve been undergoing for the last hundred years or so.

A great example of this appears in a recent lawsuit filed by the estate of JRR Tolkien, author of the books collectively known as the “Lord of the Rings.” The estate alleges that the makers of the recent film adaption of the books, which was hugely successful (unlike several previous films of the series), owe several million dollars to the estate. New Line Cinema has been sued a number of times by various parties over payments related to these movies. It’s not clear to me whether the suits are happening because New Line is not paying close attention to the royalties they owe, or because the sheer amount of money (in the billions of dollars) that these movies have generated makes them a target, but the fact remains that accounting for royalties can be complicated, and is always tedious and detail laden.

Actually, Tolkien originally sold the film rights, with royalty payments specified, back in 1969, when he was still alive. I believe the first movie based on the books, was not made until 1978. And of course, the live films with the huge gross were released 2001 - 2003. That’s a lot of years to wait, pen in hand, to begin counting (and accounting) for royalties. Without a system in place to track your rights, you could lose significantly. While the Lord of the Rings is unusual in that it would have been hard for anyone associated with the estate to miss the fact that several major Hollywood films had been made and were doing quite well, it could easily have been that the estate would have trouble finding the original 1969 terms of the sale in order to ensure proper payments.

Every copyright owner who sells rights of any kind needs a good record-keeping system.

If you have trouble organizing, you may have health problems as well, says Jummy. Read here.