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14 copyright) .^^
With respect to terminations of transfer of works created after the effective date of the new law (as well as transfers executed after that date) , the Office offered two alternatives in Section 16. Alternative A contained an inalienable 20 year limit on transfers. Alternative B permitted authors or their successors to bring suit to recover strikingly disproportionate profits received by the assignee beginning 20 years after the transfer.
For both termination of transfers of "old" and "new" works, the draft provided that a licensed derivative work prepared before termination could continue to be exploited according to the terms of the license after termination, but no new derivative works could be created. This right was particularly important to motion picture companies and encyclopedia publishers, whose works frequently included multiple contributions.
In Copyright Office meetings on the draft, then Chief of the Examining Division Barbara Ringer, in discussing Section 16 stated that the section had proved to be quite controversial, with strong opposition. ^^ At the same time, though, she added a belief that the support for "the basic principle [that] some sort of time limitation on transfers of copyright ownership may be as strong and deep-seated as the opposition."*
Opposition to the section was voiced by the motion picture industry*^ and the book publishers*^ who argued that contractual
^^ A written notice of termination had to be served on the transferee six months before the termination became effective, and had to be recorded in the Copyright Office. Unlike the bill passed in 1976, there was, though, no "window" within which the notice had to be served.
^' Copyright Law Revision Part 3 at 277. .
*° Id. See also id. at 277-278, explaining various positions.
^^ Id. at 278-281, 288-289. Motion picture companies favorably remarked on a provision that permitted the owner of a derivative work (such as a motion picture version of a novel) prepared under the authorization of a transfer to continue to exploit the derivative work after termination, but believed that even in cases of non-derivative works (as in a screenplay) , they should be able to continue to exploit the work on a non-exclusive basis after termination. Copvriaht Law Revision Part 4; Further Discussions and Comments on Preliminary Draft for Revised U.S. Copyright Law. 88th Cong., 2d Sess. 40 (House Coram. Print 1964). Although this proposal appears reasonable, in many cases (particularly with motion pictures) , a non-exclusive licensee who continues to exploit the