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Subject: Re: attn. JMS: A TV writing question...
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 04:49:45 +0000 (UTC)
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

>If by "makers" you mean the creative artists, the reason they often do 
>not retain ownership in their copyrights is money.  
..........
>I'm sure there are similar examples in other fields of the entertainment 
>industry.

Here's the great irony of the whole situation, as it relates to TV and film.

The Berne Convention was put together to protect the rights of writers, to
secure for them, by international convention, a piece of the final film or tv
series. 

The studios responded by insisting that any writer who works for them must sign
an agreement which stipulates that -- as you will see on endless movie credits
-- "for purposes of the Berne Convention, Universal (or whatever studio) shall
be considered the author of this work."

Cute, eh?

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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