WHY SCREEN CREDIT DATES ARE IMPORTANT:
The 1976 Copyright Act protects a written work for the life of the
author plus fifty years. One policy behind this time period is to make it
easier for third parties to compute the period of protection. At least
one commentator has suggested that this provides a legal theory on
which to base an author’s right to credit.
When an author writes and sells a screenplay,” the copyright to the
screenplay terminates fifty years after the author’s death, at which point
any member of the public has the right to produce a film based upon it.
Failure to identify the author in the credits frustrates attempts by third
parties to determine the date of the unknown author’s demise, and thus
the date of the screenplay’s expiration of copyright.
It can thus be argued that an express provision in a contract permitting
the producer to omit the author’s name is unenforceable because it
violates the policy underlying the 1976 Copyright Act. Although this
approach has not yet been formally adopted in any case law, it appears to
be firmly rooted in the intent of the statute.