HP & DH Movie

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Heidi Tandy <heidi8 at ...> wrote:
Carol earlier:
> >
> > Because it relates to copyright law, the topic that started this
discussion in the first place. It *is* the government's or the court's
place to determine who owns the rights to a writer's work,
> 
Heidi responded: 
> Not really. The government has already decided that a person owns
the work he or she creates (like I own the content of this email)
unless he or she assigns or licenses that work away. The government
doesn't have anything else to do with that, other than to step in with
an arbitration method (the courts) in cases of breach or fraud.
> 
> The government can step in if either party in a union-negotiating
situation isn't doing so fairly or in violation of labor laws or 
anti-monopoly laws and regulations, though.
> 

Carol responds:

If that's the case and the writers already own the rights to their
work, including those related to the Internet, why not just take the
producers to court for violating copyright law? My understanding was
that this was a new situation, not covered under existing law (just as
fanfic isn't covered under the existing fair use doctrine).

The whole point of the strike, as I understand it, is that the
writers' rights are being violated, and the strike isn't resolving
that problem.

Carol, wondering whether Hollywood writers, like teachers, can join a
professional organization that doesn't strike in preference to a union
(in the case of teachers, the AFT is a union and the NEA, of which I
was a member, is not)