With other accounting improprieties alleged such as undocumented marketing expenses and improper deductions, Shearer's lawsuit references the Copyright Act's termination provisions, which allow authors to cancel grants and regain rights after 35 years."Particularly given that Vivendi has offset fraudulent accounting for revenues from music copyrights against equally dubious revenue streams for film and merchandising rights also controlled by Vivendi subsidiaries, Shearer is concurrently filing notices of copyright termination for publishing and recording rights in Spinal Tap songs he co-wrote and co-recorded, as well as in the film itself," states the complaint.
That would mean that Vivendi would potentially lose rights to This is Spinal Tap in 2019. Copyright termination has been a big subject in the music industry, but is only beginning to impact the film business.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 18 October 2016 15:46 (seven years ago) link