Chain of title
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
A chain of title is the sequence of historical transfers of title to a property. It is a valuable tool to identify and document past owners of a property and serves as a property's historical ownership timeline. The "chain" runs from the present owner back to the original owner of the property. In situations where documentation of ownership is important, it is often necessary to reconstruct the chain of title. To facilitate this, a record of title documents may be maintained by a registry office or civil law notary.
Chain of title for real property
Chain of title for copyrights, trademarks, and rights of publicity
In the motion picture industry, the chain of title involves the series of documentation which establishes proprietary rights in a film. The chain also applies to compilations in other fields, where many people have contributed to the project, thus acquiring authorship rights, or where materials were culled from many sources. Chain of title is extremely important to film purchasers and to film distributors, as it establishes the veracity of the owner's proprietary rights (or rights under license) in the intellectual property in a film, book or encyclopedia.
Chain of title documentation can include:
- collecting society, and to a less common extent, footage of other films;
- trademark clearances;
- choreographers, or others, to use their works, images, likeness and other personality rightsin the film;
- proof of errors and omission insurance (a special form of insurance for motion picture producers which covers omissions in obtaining adequate chain of title).
Specialist organizations engage in the production of copyright property reports for motion picture studios, which cover original or unexploited works, and include the results of United States Copyright Office screening searches, author claimant searches, registration renewal searches and assignment searches. This involves reviewing US Copyright Office records from 1870 to present and numerous trade publications and databases, and Library of Congress records.
References
External links
- "How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work" (PDF). (72.5 KB), U.S. Copyright Office