RAC believes strongly that Congress should reexamine the work for hire provisions in the 1976 Copyright Act with an eye toward clarifying authorship issues of sound recordings. However, before any real progress can be made on the work for hire issue, the record labels, represented by the RIAA, must fundamentally change their relationship with recording artists and more importantly, with the organizations and groups representing recording artists. While paying great lip service to the importance of the recording artist to their companies in testimony before Congress, the record labels and the RIAA have adopted a policy of indifference and confrontation regarding work for hire. The RIAA has made it very clear that they are not interested in meeting or negotiating with the recording artists. Nor have they shown a willingness to fulfill the strong desire of Congress (specifically this Committee) for the parties to negotiate an acceptable work for hire amendment that would be supported by all factions in the music industry and Congress. Apparently, the RIAA has taken the position that they will fight this issue in court, thereby taking full advantage of the immense difference in financial resources between the record labels, owned and supported by multinational corporations, on the one hand, and the recording artists on the other. This record company posture is unacceptable to the recording artists, and should be unacceptable to Congress.

As the record labels have no intention of starting any kind of substantive dialogue with the recording artists, it is imperative that Congress intercedes and calls for hearings on this issue. All sides in this debate--and there are many--must be heard in a "blue-sky" forum. Academics must offer their counsel, and even producers, backing performers, and the unions must be given the opportunity to present their views. Only when a full public airing of all viewpoints is made can the parties and Congress fashion a fair and sensible amendment or, in the alternative, decide to refrain from offering an amendment. This is how the Copyright Law has been amended in the past. There is no reason to veer from this democratic and mutually respectful tradition.

Seemingly, the record labels learned very little from the work for hire episode. At the core of this conflict is the disconnect between the public perception of recording artist/record company relations, and the reality. Record companies publicly portray the recording artist as a partner in their enterprise. The record companies use this image of a working "partnership" between recording artists and record companies as a way to entice recording artists to sign with their companies. However, once the record contract is signed, the record label's true goal, that of creating an employer/employee relationship, generally replaces the illusion of a partnership. Recording artists are not employees. We are not entitled to the benefits of employees such as pensions and health care, and as such we do not create works for hire.

In fact, the working relationship between a recording artist and a record company is that of a joint venture/partnership. Other than the standard boilerplate work for hire language that is mandatory and non-negotiable in almost every record agreement with a major label, there are no contractual indicia of an employer/employee relationship. So while the recording artist works with the record company as a functional partner, the record company treats the recording artist as an employee. The record companies must treat recording artists more like partners, which in fact they are. If the record labels would listen to and respect the recording artists' collective political and economic voice, tremendous progress could be made to resolve the lingering political and contractual differences between the recording artists and the labels, including work for hire.