Bob Marley family loses to UMG
p2pnet view Music:- A multi-billion-dollar French record company, the biggest member of the corporate music Sue ‘Em All gang, owns several of the late Bob Marley’s best-known recordings — not his family.
That’s the view of US district judge Denise Cote.
She’s ruled the UMG Recordings unit of Vivendi’s Universal Music Group owns the copyrights to Catch a Fire, Burnin’, Natty Dread, Rastaman Vibrations and Exodus, recorded by Marley between 1973 and 1977 for Island Records, says Reuters.
The five albums include Get Up, Stand Up, I Shot the Sheriff, No Woman, No Cry and One Love.
The ruling “is a defeat for Marley’s widow Rita and nine children who had sought to recover millions of dollars in damages over UMG’s effort to exploit what they called the quintessential Bob Marley sound recordings”, says the story, going on:
“Marley’s family accused UMG of intentionally withholding royalties from their company Fifty-Six Hope Road Music Ltd, and ignoring a 1995 agreement assigning them rights under the original recording agreements, court papers show.
“It also accused UMG of failing as required to consult with them on key licensing decisions, including the use of Marley’s music as ringtones on AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile phones, the papers show.”
But “Cote concluded that Marley’s recordings were works made for hire as defined under U.S. copyright law, entitling UMG to be designated the owner of those recordings, for both the initial 28-year copyright terms and for renewals”, says Reuters, adding she also “denied the Marley family’s request for a ruling upholding its claims over digital downloads, citing ambiguity in a 1992 royalties agreement.
The Marleys and Viviendi have been ordered to “enter court-supervised settlement talks”, with a conference slated for October 29.
Reuters – Bob Marley family loses case over hit records, September 13, 2010
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
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September 13th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Vivendique Universale working for the artists? Ya right!
We have to destroy this corporation of parasites.
I hope they can appeal this decision to force this corporation of parasites to try bribing another judge.
September 13th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Nobody should be profiting from these recordings by now. Copyright is supposed to be a social contract to empower the people and encourage the creation of new works of art. This was its original mission.
Its unutterably broken. In its present state it cannot and will not perform as originally intended. Without serious reform it represents an unjust and immoral act. An act is only law with the consent of the governed. Don’t consent folks. Copyright is a fiction and if you choose for it not to be, not even a legal one.
September 14th, 2010 at 6:30 am
The selfish recording industrys lust for cash never ends, these record companies are like blood sucking vampires to any artist, just how a US judge is deciding this when Island was not a US based record label is beyond me.
http://www.islandrecords.co.uk/history.php
I hope artists reading this wake up and see just what the labels get up to when they think they can out-lawyer your relatives.
September 14th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
It’s sad. Not even the artist’s families can get a single penny from greedy music corporations. I say that we shouldn’t even give thiese corporations our pennies, either.
Continue the boycott!
September 15th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
MARLEY WORK FOR HIRE
Apparently the court decision hinges on the words “work for hire”.
If a work is a work for hire, and a written contract states that, then the work belongs to the hiring party, who was, surely, paid a salary or a lump sum for the wok. In that case there are no royalties to be paid. If the work was a voice recording by Marley, then a lump sum was paid to him and no royalties needed to be paid, regardless of how many records were sold.
If there is no work for hire contract then the work belongs to the creator. It use to be that way but this court decision may confuse what formerly was a simple thing, so as to favor a moneyed party of a lawsuit or an entire, lobby powerful recording industry.
No having seen the Marley-record company contract nor the court opinion, if there was a work for hire contract between Marley and the record company, the case makes no sense to me because if the Marley family lawyer, before suing, had talked to the record company and the record company presented the copy of the contract, the filing of the lawsuit made no sense as the lawsuit was destined to be a losing proposition.
I know of one singer, a very successful one, that after some bad experience with bad royalty payments or payments that never came from a couple of record companies, only recorded on a work for hire basis for a lump sum payment that was independent of how many records were sold.
If Marly did the same thing, signed for a lump sum, then the family of Marley had no case and the lawsuit should have never been filed.
If on the other hand the so called work for hire contract did not exists or if Marley or his family received, at one time, royalties for the recording (not for the use of the songs), then there was no real work for hire contract. Careful with the word “real” here, because if there was a work for hire contract but singer royalties were paid or required to be paid per the contract, then the contract was contradictory or confusing.
Also, if the contract had a work for hire clause, but did not specify the payment to Marley, then the work for hire clause may be invalid and its work for hire clause may be invalid.
Then there is a complex angle in determining recording ownership, because in many recordings there are many performing artists involved. These may be a singer, a pianist, an arranger, many orchestra musicians, an investor, etc. In justice, the best ownership claims rests on the “star” performer or the a record company or an investor investor who are the hiring party in a work for hire contract.
Another angle here if if this was a copyright ownership or termination case or a contract violation case. Perhaps if it was a contract violation case the proper jurisdiction was a state court. Apparently the judge treated the cases as a copyright ownership case and that operated against the Marley family simply because the decision favored and the federal courts usually favor the entire copyright industry.
Nothing of what I have said has to do with the songs. I doubt that that Marley the songwriter would have given the songs to a record company in such a way that he lost all rights to receive royalties from the songs or his rights to license said songs to other record companies. In all events if the record company has not reported royalties while selling records, that could be a contract (that licensed the songs) violation and the license could be withdrawn, a great bargaining chip for the Marley family.
Someone in a posting questions the American jurisdiction of the case. Could be that the work was produced in an American based studio.
If the Marley-record company was of another jurisdiction (Jamaica, France…) then the case should have been heard in another place.
Anyway, the suing party, apparently, had no choice as to where to file the lawsuit, or did some forum shopping and it backfired.
Or perhaps they did lawyer shopping and chose an American lawyer and that lawyer, naturally filed the lawsuit where he/she was licensed to practice.