Our next seminar will be on 12 November, 6pm at Bristows
Gloucester PlaceMusic v. LeBon, the flip side: extraterritoriality and the US termination right in Vetter v Resnick'
Speakers: Jane Ginsburg and Sir Richard Arnold
Jane Ginsburg is the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at University of Columbia, USA, Faculty Co-Director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts, ALAI Vice-President, author (with Sam Ricketson) of International Copyright & Neighboring Rights: The Berne Convention and Beyond, (3d ed, OUP 2022) and many other intellectual property publications. Sir Richard Arnold is a Lord Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal ofEngland and Wales, edits the intellectual property chapter of Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws (16th ed) and is author of Performers’ Rights (6th ed, Sweet & Maxwell, 2021; 7th ed in preparation), and many publications and ground-breaking judgments on copyright, other intellectual property rights, related causes of action (such as unfair competition), and remedies (such as website blocking injunctions).
In Gloucester Place Music v. LeBon, the UK courts applied UK contract law to defeat the UK authors' right under US copyright law to terminate their grant of rights for the US. The US Copyright Act preserves authors' rights to terminate grants of rights for the US "notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary." The decision has attracted criticism for allowing UK contract law to override US substantive copyright rights. In an equally lamentable flip side to the territoriality of US termination rights, the US
Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Vetter v Resnick has recently interpreted the US termination right to allow the termination of rights worldwide, notwithstanding the statutory limitation that "Termination of a grant under this section affects only those rights covered by the grants that arise under this title, and in no way affects rights arising under any other Federal, State, or foreign laws." The Fifth Circuit thus allowed its misreading of the US Copyright Act to override contracts governed by foreign laws in the foreign countries for which the rights were granted.
Membership
The annual subscription is £50 via this link. This covers attendance at all the regular meetings and entitles members to a substantial discount on the fee for joint BLACA seminars. BLACA members are automatically members of ALAI with entitlement to discounted fees to attend its international Congresses and Study Days each year and to receive free copies of the proceedings (A special registration fee is available for registered students). Enquiries to Stephen Edwards.
