This final chapter ties together the lessons gleaned from the preceding analyses of statutory and contractual reversion models to present broad principles for lawmakers to apply when considering implementing reversion mechanisms in their jurisdictions. These principles are pitched at a suitably abstract level, cognisant of the different issues faced across different creative markets and jurisdictions. They cover elements like protecting reversion mechanisms against subversion by rightsholders and ensuring reversion mechanisms are industry specific. We close the chapter, and the book, with a provocation as to what an effective reversion system might look like, drawn from Giblin’s prior work in ‘A New Copyright Bargain’ (2018).

This chapter examines how copyright’s bargain is broken when compared against its incentive and rewards rationales. Copyright grants far exceed what is necessary to incentivise initial production and ongoing investments, and the rewards from creative labour do not filter down to the creators copyright was designed to protect. It then shows how reverting copyright to creators after it has been assigned or licensed, mainly through legal mechanisms, can help address these problems, before examining some of the main arguments against reversion rights (e.g. that it unduly imposes upon the freedom of parties to enter into contractual relationships).

Having examined dominant statutory reversion mechanisms, this chapter shows why contracts between creators and rightsholders are not adequate repositories for reversion rights. It presents the results of a study into Australian publishing agreements, demonstrating concerning deficiencies in contractual reversion rights. It also presents results from Untapped, a project dedicated to the revitalisation of important pieces of out-of-print literary heritage in Australia. These results show the difficulties of enforcing contractual reversion rights. Cumulatively, the chapter shows that the contractual model cannot be consistently relied on to provide these rights for creators, and thus that models in law should be considered (which is the focus of the next chapter).

This chapter examines how copyright reversion mechanisms developed in US copyright law. It traces the history of such provisions to its present day iteration (an inalienable right for creators to terminate copyright grants after around 35 years). As with the study of British reversionary rights, the chapter highlights how the US provisions have often been rendered ineffective through the behaviour of rightsholders (both before and after reversion mechanisms have been passed). It focuses on how the current termination scheme operates, highlighting its considerable problems: for example, uncertainty over whether sound recordings are covered, and the sheer difficulty of meeting the formalities necessary to exercise the statutory rights.

This chapter is the first of three examinations of dominant copyright reversion traditions (UK, US, EU) throughout this book. It traces how reversion rights were present in the very first copyright statute, the 1710 Statute of Anne. It demonstrates how different iterations of reversion rights were hamstrung by poor design and undermining by rightsholders (e.g. by contracting around the intended effects of these provisions). It then canvasses modern developments in reversion rights across the Commonwealth (like in Canada and South Africa).

This chapter is the last of the statute-focused chapters. It concentrates on how reversion rights have developed across the European Union. It briefly examines historical laws that reflect the incentive and reward concerns of subsequent reversion rights, before providing an overview of prominent types of reversion mechanisms in force in the EU as of 2020. This provides valuable context for an analysis of the most recent reversion development in the EU, the implementation of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (which required Member States to implement, at minimum, a right to end grants of rights where there was a ‘lack of exploitation’). The chapter demonstrates, however, that this provision, and many of its implementations in the domestic laws of Member States, also suffers from the problems identified in the US and UK chapters – poor design, ineffective triggers and the ability of rightsholders to undermine it, for example by contracting out of the scheme’s intended effect.

The Berne Convention was intended to be regularly revised, but we've now gone almost half a century with no substantive change - and it is looking increasingly unlikely to ever be changed again. But as the world radically transforms around it, Berne’s superseded structures continue to be locked in and given teeth by TRIPS. This chapter explores the practical extent of that lock-in, and provocatively argues that we may soon reach a point where rational countries choose to take Berne’s ‘front door out’: to exercise their rights to domestically depart from its minima to reach a more satisfactory copyright bargain for their authors and the broader public.