Document Type
Article
Abstract
This Article focuses on the federal estate and gift tax treatment of copyright termination rights. The ability of a creative individual to terminate prior copyright transfers serves to protect against economic exploitation. Once a copyright's value has been established in the marketplace, the author (or the author's heirs) enjoys a "second look" at the gift, sale, license or other transfer of a copyright. But copyright termination rights--intended to enhance the economic well-being of authors and artists--undermine estate planning strategies available to owners of other types of property. There is no policy justification for such discrimination, and so this Article proposes legislative changes that would level the playing field for wealth transfer tax purposes.
Recommended Citation
Bridget J. Crawford & Mitchell M. Gans, Sticky Copyrights: Discriminatory Tax Restraints on the Transfer of Intellectual Property, 67 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 25 (2010), http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/744/.
Included in
Intellectual Property Law Commons, Taxation-Federal Estate and Gift Commons, Tax Law Commons