Law Commons^™

Banksy Got Back? Problems With Chains Of Unauthorized Derivative Works And Arrangements In Cover Songs Under A Compulsory License, Matthew A. Eller

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

This Article will analyze the scope of copyright ownership in relation to chains of unauthorized derivative works and chains of arrangement rights in cover versions of musical recordings. In particular, the analysis will focus on the gray area in the law where an unauthorized derivative work (“D1”) is created by an author and another author creates a second derivative work (“D2”) based off of D1. In situations such as these, does the creator of the original derivative work have any rights in their creation if their derivative work was unauthorized?

Further, depending on what rights do exist for D1, can …