Copyright law has transitioned from a primarily domestic area of law to an international matter over the past century. Today, the transfer or sale of a single copyrighted song can implicate several states’ domestic laws and be subject to competing terms of protection and interpretation. This Paper explores one specific aspect of international copyright law: an author’s right to termination. Several states give authors of copyrighted material the ability to withdraw or terminate prior transfers of their copyrighted material in order to secure moral or economic interests in their own work. However, not all states recognize a right to termination or withdrawal.

Under today’s fragmented global copyright regime, the problem of termination inconsistencies arises when parties to a contract for the transfer of copy-righted material choose a law to govern their contract that does not recognize an artist’s right to terminate or withdraw the transfer, but the contract has a close connection to a state whose law does recognize termination or withdrawal rights. This Paper argues that countries that protect termination rights should amend their domestic copyright laws in order to trigger key exceptions to party autonomy under choice of law conventions, and that the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Work should be amended to incorporate termination rights.

Continue reading Help! Fixing the Problem of Copyright Termination Inconsistencies Through Public and Private International Law