What Is a Termination of a Transfer?
Sometimes an author transfers copyright to someone and then later the author re-acquires it through a process known as “terminating a transfer. ” Copyright laws provide a method by which authors can reclaim rights after a number of years. This termination and reclamation process is complex and the rules differ depending on when the work was first published. As a very general rule, transfer terminations occur between 28 and 56 years of first publication. Terminations are filed with the Copyright Office and can be located by researching Copyright Office records.
