There is always someone who contributes nothing to culture who wants to be paid.

A magazine article from 1983, inspired the original “Top Gun” movie.

The author, Ehud Yonay, transferred the copyright to Paramount for a fee. There is a Copyright law that allows him to terminate this transfer after 35 years.

But he died in 2012, so his widow and son filed a termination notice in 2018 which was approved and in effect from 2020.

I don’t agree with Copyrights lasting 70 to 90 years after the death of the creator, but it’s a law that’s in effect and it will not change anytime soon. This law was designed to benefit the Corporations originally as they are the ones who lobbied hard to get it passed, but as a by product, it also benefited the heirs of very valuable works. Much to the hatred of the movie studios and labels.

So “Top Gun: Maverick” comes out and it starts making some serious coin, the author’s heirs sued Paramount Pictures. They claim that the sequel never should have been made as the Movie Studio does not hold the rights to the magazine story.

Expect a decent settlement before it gets to the courts. Because all the heirs want is a payday.

Poor Mariah.

Her 1994 song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has been streamed over a billion times earning Carey over $60 million in royalties.

And now an artist is suing for Copyright Infringement because they had a song with the same title out a few years before that.

Yep, they are suing because of the song title which has been used 177 times in the U.S by different artists. It’s no so original is it.

Imagine Judas Priest suing Def Leppard and Halestorm for “Love Bites”.

But the mind boggling Copyright action at the moment comes from Mary Bono, the widow of Sonny Bono and a former Republican U.S. Representative. She was instrumental in getting a law passed called “The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act” in 1998 which extending the terms of copyrights for another 20 years for any works created in 1923 and after. This meant the Public Domain in the US got nothing from 1998, until 1 January 2019.

And now she has filed termination notices to several corporations to get back the rights to Sonny’s works (as he was the writer) and remove Cher from those rights as well which Cher is suing for.

Because Cher’s royalties came because of the divorce agreement she had with Sonny when they agreed to split the royalties equally. I never knew that dead people still had to pay monies post divorce.

And that’s what Mary Bono is arguing. That copyright law supersedes divorce agreements.

And the RIAA and MPAA still argue that we need longer Copyright terms to benefit the creators.