[MUD-Dev] Artists and Copyrights

[Derek Licciardi]

How do the commercial games out there handle contract artists and
musicians?  Is the work that they do the sole property of the game
and the company that owns the game or is there a tendency to share
the rights to the work with the contract artist?  We've had a
composer take a piece done for our demo and rework it with the Utah
Symphony Orchestra.  He's interested in adding it to his demo reel
and copyrighting the material as his own work.  While our contract
with him says that he cannot have the "Ages of Athiria" music
because it belongs to EPI, I'm not sure we want to enforce it that
strictly and ruin an otherwise good relationship.  We're discussing
sharing the rights to the music with him.  I'm interested in knowing
if something like this has been done before with any of the
commercial games.  From what I can tell it has but I do not know
specifics concerning the agreements.  (ala what rights were given,
.)

 I know Mythic has allowed the cover artist they worked with to
imprint the artwork with her signature.  EQ also has done the same.
One would believe that John Williams has some ownership over his
Star Wars work.  (speculation) I'm looking for information
pertaining to how these arrangements were worked out.  Any help
would be appreciated.

Derek
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