Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California
Hello people, I have been involved with a big music celebrity for almost thirty years. This man is a major Grammy winner and a world known artist.
Over a four year period I helped him compile his auto biography. It started out I was only going to transcribe his stories from tape recording session I had with him. However, because he didn't want to put any money out I ended up paying for everything myself including travel and all the expenses that went into creating a rough draft of his life. In this period of time I started interviewing major producers and artist that had been part of his life. Because we were friends for so long in this period of time he gave me a total of 5700.00 that really had nothing to do with the work. This was not a work for hire and I never signed a document that said it was and we never agreed that the money he gave me had anything to do with the work. However, now he is claiming that I have no money due. In fact for years he was telling me how much money I was going to make and how great the work was that I was doing. I registered an early version of the books several years ago by sending if to myself by mail registered.
Still unopened register package. I don't know how valid that is but it does show that it was my work. This artist has probably registered this work by now since his lawyers are from a top attorney firm in Los Angeles. One other tidbit......... I also was given producers credit on his last album that was released this year and it is just now that the record company sent me a contract to sign, probably at the encouragement of his lawyers because they may think that there is going to be some kind of lawsuit and they are trying to tie up loose ends. My question is should I sign this producers contract before I settle the book issue. Please respond quickly as I am in a bind of what to do and the lawyers for the record company has emailed me five times asking me to respond. I believe if I had representation, they would stop this obstruction and deal with this four year body of work. It is my position as of now that I worked in the capacity of a journalist and this body of work is my copyright until the time I sign away my copyright rights. Can you help me or direct me to someone who would be willing to take on one of the most powerful agency in the music business.
thank you for your attention,
forest sprague
3 Answers from Attorneys
Hello,
It sounds like you have some deep issues that could come out to be favorable, but you are not going to resolve this matter properly by dealing with it yourself. It sounds like you really need to hire an attorney. It doesn't matter how high profile the other attorney is, if you have the rights then you have a good position. Let me know if you are interested in our firm. We have dealt with these kind of issues frequently. FYI we do not work on contingency.
Mailing something to yourself proves nothing and is a waste of time and money. Copyright attaches to a work as soon as it is created, so you do own the copyright even if it is never registered. Registration does have the advantage of proving your ownership to a third party, however, so you should do the registration as soon as possible--it is relatively simple and inexpensive to do. The person who creates the work owns the copyright, unless it is transferred in writing. The work for hire doctrine applies only where the creation of the work is part of your regular job and you are paid as a regular employee--it does not apply to "independent contractors" unless, again, there is a written contract that says you agree that the person paying you is the author for copyright purposes. There is a much more detailed description of rights, including copyright, in the volume 2 of the DVD series, "What Every Filmmaker Needs to Know About the Law."
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