[Fmpro] test posting: obscure royalty, etc.

[CORBERAMA@aol.com]

has anyone on this list ever received a royalty they knew to be  something 
called a broadcast/mechanical?  It emanates from European  countries.  As I 
understand it, it is a royalty payable generally by a  television broadcaster 
which is part mechanical and part performance  royalty.
 
I believe the broadcaster pays it to the in-country PRO and part o  it is 
paid by the PRO to the local sub-publisher which then pays it over to the  US 
publisher and there, it seems, the money disappears into the publisher's  coffers 
and is undisclosed.
 
However, I was once told that Paramount pays these.  So, dos  anyone know if 
they've ever received this money?
 
I'm sorry I missed the whole multiple titles for the same musical  cue 
discussion.
 
Just briefly:  copyright law and the copyright form (now form  CO replacing 
all the forms) requires a registrant to disclose whether the  subject of the 
registration has ever been registered before.
 
Fraudulently failing to make the disclosure could be a federal  crime under 
17 United States Code Section 506(e).  
 
As for who is hurt, well....
 
Let's theorize that ABC pays $3.5 billion a year to ascap  for a blanket 
license to broadcast any of the approx. 350,000 works in the  ascap repertory.  
But what if there really aren't 350,000 works, there are  only 175,000 works 
each of which has been registered twice with two alternate  titles each.
 
Only maybe 50,000 works with 7 alternate titles.  
 
The other thing, when you register a copyright in an original work,  it is 
the work you are registering (or the expression you have created) not the  
title, copyright protects the original work of .authorship, not the  title.  Titles 
would be protected, if at all under trademark  law.
 
17 USC 102:  Copyright protection subsists, in  accordance with this title, 
in original works of authorship fixed in any  tangible medium of expression, 
now known or later developed, from which they can  be perceived, reproduced, or 
otherwise communicated, either directly or with the  aid of a machine or 
device.
 
 
 
PROTECT  YOU RIGHTS
Brian Lee Corber
attorney at Law
Los Angeles,  California
_corberlaw at aol.com_ (mailto:corberlaw at aol.com) 
_http://corberlaw.com_ (http://corberlaw.com) 
 



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