Copyright Predicament(1:21:39)

Guest: Clark Asay, J.D., Associate Professor of Law at Brigham Young University  There’s a new Mission Impossible movie coming out next month. Tom Cruise has played the central character in that franchise for more than a decade. His performance will be key to the success of this latest film. So here’s a question to chew on – does Tom Cruise own the rights to that performance? Can an actor copyright his work on screen? Or does the copyright belong to the writer or director or producer? What would happen if actors could copyright their performances? If Tom Cruise saw the final cut of the Mission Impossible movie and didn’t like the way it turned out, could he then demand that it not be released based on his ownership of the performance?