ASMP General Counsel Victor Perlman is closely following the “Copyright Cleanup, Clarification, and Corrections Act of 2010” (S 3689) which was passed by the Senate on August 2nd. According to Perlman, “I am concerned about the amendment regarding Ownership of Copyright, which gives the transferees of exclusive rights the ability to further transfer or license those rights without specific permission from the original copyright owner. I plan to discuss this with appropriate legislative staff.” More to come on this…
The Mayor’s Office of Film Theatre and Broadcasting passed the amendment, which ASMP has opposed, to the rules of the City of New York governing the issuance of permits for shooting, television, film and still photography on the streets of New York City. The amendment includes a $300 application fee for such permits and does not distinguish between small photography shoots and immense film productions. To find out how these rules apply, you can go here
On August 9th, an Arizona judge rejected a number of copyright registrations made by Corbis on behalf of former ASMP member Tom Bean. The basis for the rejection was that the registration was a compilation and did not name all of the individual photographers, did not title the photographs, and did not connect photographers with individual images. This is very similar to last month’s ASMP News story about the case of Muench Photography, Inc. vs Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Though the judge said his decision was not based on the Muench case, and that it was narrow in its application, ASMP is troubled by the ruling and will be following up as the case makes its way through the court system.