Chain of title, and why financiers ask for it before anything else
Nobody finances a film they cannot prove you own. Chain of title is the paper trail from every author who touched the material to the entity that will sign the distribution agreement — and it is almost always thinner than the producer believes.
Who owns a record: masters, publishing, and why they are two different things
Every song you can hear is two copyrights, owned by two different sets of people, paid through two different systems. Owning your masters is one of them. The other one is usually worth more.