Gary K Wolf is the author of a fantastic 1981 novel called *Who Censored Roger Rabbit?* which Disney licensed and turned into an equally fantastic 1988 live action/animated hybrid movie called *Who Framed Roger Rabbit?* 1/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on , my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: 2/

But despite the commercial and critical acclaim of the movie, Disney hasn't made any feature-length sequels. 3/

This is a nightmare scenario for a creator: you make a piece of work that turns out to be incredibly popular, but you've licensed it to a kind of absentee landlord who owns the rights but refuses to exercise them. 4/

Luckily, the copyright system contains a provision designed to rescue creative workers who fall into this trap: "Termination of Transfer." 5/

"Termination of Transfer" was introduced via the 1976 Copyright Act. It allows creators to unilaterally cancel the copyright licenses they have signed over to others, by waiting 35 years and then filing some paperwork with the US Copyright Office. 6/

Termination is a powerful copyright policy, and unlike most copyright, it solely benefits creative *workers* and not our bosses. 7/

Copyright is a very weak tool for protecting creators' interests, because copyright only gives us something to bargain *with*, without giving us any bargaining *power*, which means that copyright becomes something we bargain *away*. 8/

Think of it this way: for the past 50 years, copyright has only expanded in every direction. Copyright now lasts longer, covers more kinds of works, prohibits more uses without permission, and carries stiffer penalties. 9/

The media industry is now larger and more profitable than at any time in history. But at the same time, the amount of money being earned by creative *workers* has only fallen over this period. 10/

That's true both in real terms (how much money an average creative worker brings home) and as a share of the total (what percentage of the revenues from a creator's work the creator gets to keep). How to explain this seeming paradox? 11/

The answer lies in the structure of creative labor markets, which are *brutally* concentrated. 12/

Creative workers bargain with one of five publishers, one of four studios, one of three music labels, one of two app marketplaces, or just one company that controls all the ebooks and audiobooks. 13/

The media industry isn't just a *monopoly*, in other words - it's also a *monopsony*, which is to say, a collection of powerful *buyers*. The middlemen who control access to our audiences have all the power. 14/

When Congress gives creators new copyrights to bargain with, the Big Five (or Four, or Three, or Two, or One) just amend their standard, non-negotiable contract to require creators to sign those new rights over as a condition of doing business. 15/

In other words, giving creative workers more rights without addressing their market power is like giving your bullied kid more lunch money. There isn't an amount of lunch money you can give that kid that will buy them lunch - you're just enriching the bullies. 16/

Do this for long enough and you'll make the bullies so rich they can buy off the school principal. 17/

Keep it up even longer and the bullies will hire an ad agency to run a global campaign bemoaning the plight of the hungry schoolkids and demanding that they be given more lunch money: 18/

This is an argument that Rebecca Giblin and I develop in our 2022 book *Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back*: 19/

Rebecca's a law prof who is, among other things, one of the world's leading experts on Termination of Transfer, who co-authored the definitive study on it, and the many ways Termination has benefited creators *at the expense of media companies*: 20/

Remember, Termination is one of the only copyright policies that solely benefits creative workers. Under Termination, a media company can force you to sign away your rights in perpetuity, but you can *still* claim those rights back after 35 years. 21/

Termination isn't just something to bargain *away*, it's a new power to bargain *with*. The history of how Termination got into the 1976 Copyright Act is pretty gnarly. The original text of the Termination clause made Termination *automatic*, after 25 years. 22/

That would have meant that every quarter century, every media company would have to go hat in hand to every creative worker whose work was still selling and beg them to sign a new contract. 23/