"Disney hires Leopold Stokowski to prepare music composition for the
soundtrack of Fantasia. Disney gets a copyright for the motion
picture. Meanwhile Stokowski has his manuscript published and a gets a
copyright for the music! Reason is that since Disney was not in the
'business' of publishing music scores for symphony orchestras, that
application was outside the scope of the employment contract. When
Disney wanted to remake Fantasia in the 60's it found that it did not
'own' those musical compositions, and Uncle Walt being a notoriously
stingy person could not bring himself to paying Stokowski yet again
for the same music. A similar example occurred for the use of the
voice of Snow White in movie Snow White. While performance copyright
is a California State law issue, the concepts are comparable to
Federal work-for-hire. Disney paid, by contract, for the exploitive
use of those voice recordings for the movie soundtrack. That original
contract did not provide for unforeseen uses, such as repackaging for
internet, kids video or TV cartoons, music CDs, et cetera. The
authoress complained to the court that since the contract did not
specify payment for such uses, that unpaid use was infringement.
Another action from the mid-50s was Lady and the Tramp, which had some
of its music composed by sultry jazz singer Peggy Lee. While
compensated for the movie theatrical run sync rights, additional use
of that same music in video distribution requires transmission rights,
which Disney was later forced to pay."
http://www.r-vcr.com/music/copyright/hire.htm |
