The New York Times | August 15, 2011 | Larry Rohter
Since their release in 1978, hit albums like Bruce Springsteen &s Darkness on the Edge of Town, Billy Joel &s 52nd Street, the Doobie Brothers & Minute by Minute, Kenny Rogers &s Gambler and Funkadelic &s One Nation Under a Groove have generated tens of millions of dollars for record companies. But thanks to a little-noted provision in United States copyright law, those artists – and thousands more – now have the right to reclaim ownership of their recordings, potentially leaving the labels out in the cold.
[Comment from the Recording Industry]
We believe the termination right doesn &t apply to most sound recordings, said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group in Washington that represents the interests of record labels. As the record companies see it, the master recordings belong to them in perpetuity, rather than to the artists who wrote and recorded the songs, because, the labels argue, the records are works for hire, compilations created not by independent performers but by musicians who are, in essence, their employees.
For more on the story see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/arts/music/springsteen-and-others-soon-eligible-to-recover-song-rights.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2