Originally Posted by kane

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this. If you are a band and the record label wants you to sign over the copyright for all your work in order to get signed, you have the option of not doing that. You can pay to record your record and distribute your record yourself. You can go to a different label or a smaller label that will let you retain these rights. Not every person who signs with a big record label signs over these right, but some choose to do that in exchange for more money.

But let's look at a 14 year copyright. So you get signed by a record label and record an album when you are 25 years old. And the album tanks and the band breaks up and you get a job and move on with your life. 18 years later you are married with kids and living a normal life with a normal job and your band is just something you look back on as a fun period in your life. Then a very big band comes along and hears your song somewhere. They want to cover it. They put it on their next record and it is a huge hit. It lands in the top 10 and they sell a million downloads of it and it helps the record go triple platinum. And you lost your copyright 4 years prior to that so all you can do is be happy that someone finally heard your song even if you never see one dime from your song's success. Fair?