What happened?
2 On-site staff was one of the most famous and controversial rappers of the 1980s and 1990s, known for his racy lyrics, which at the time were still rare in pop music. During their heyday, they found themselves accused of indecency for performing songs in public, their 1989 album They can be as annoying as they want Declared illegal in South Florida by a judge.
Ultimately, the band was found not guilty and the appeals court overturned the album ban.
Today, more than thirty years later, the lead singer of the band, Luther Campbelland the heirs of two other members of 2 Live Crew are involved in another precedent-setting legal case.
This time it’s a civil case that will determine whether Campbell and his heirs have any rights to 2 Live Crew’s music.
The jury trial begins Monday (October 7) in federal court in Florida, with record companies Xiao Qiao Records Considers 2 Live Crew’s music to be a “work for hire” and its member – Campbell (a.k.a. uncle luke), Christopher Huang Yuan (aka Fresh kids ice), David Hobbs (aka Mr Meeks) and Mark Ross (aka marquis brothers) – and its successors do not own any copyright in the music.
Campbell and the heirs argued that 2 Live Crew’s music was not a “work-for-hire” and that its members were not employees of their label at the time. Luke Recordsand under U.S. law, they have the right to reclaim their master recording copyright.
Here’s how the case breaks down…
background
In 1996, Lil’ Joe Records owned Joseph Weinbergpurchased all mastering and publishing rights to the 2 Live Crew album, as well as the 2 Live Crew trademark, from Luther Campbell and his label, Luke Records, to which 2 Live Crew was also signed.
A year ago, Campbell and Luke Records were forced into bankruptcy court over unpaid debts.
Twenty-four years later, in November 2020, two Live Crew members and heirs sent a “notice of termination” to Lil’ Joe Records, informing the company that they would be taking back the master rights to the music.
Under U.S. copyright law, the original owners (i.e., authors) of a copyrighted work can reclaim their rights to the work after 35 years if a majority of the original owners agree to do so.
The notice stated that the heirs of Campbell, Mark Ross and Christopher Huang Yuan will take back the mastering rights to the first three albums of 2 Live Crew, We are 2 field staff, move somethingand As nasty as we want it to be. The termination dates are set for 2022, 2023 and 2024, the 35th anniversary of the album’s release date.
However, Lil’ Joe Records opposed the termination of the contract and sued 2 Live Crew members and their heirs in 2021.
Lil’ Joe said the 1996 contract with Campbell and Luke Records gave him rights to his music “free and clear of any liens, claims, encumbrances, fees, setoffs or compensation of any kind” and that Campbell agreed to receive “whether No royalties are charged on any masters or compositions as an artist, producer, writer, publisher or in any other capacity.
The label claims this means that, in a bankruptcy sale, it also takes over the author’s termination rights.
Li Qiao also made another argument: Its complaint alleges that Campbell made himself an “employee” of its record label and that he “assigned all rights with respect to the copyright to Luke Records as a hired employee.” The other members of 2 Live Crew are also employees of the label, which means that 2 Live Crew’s recordings are “works for hire.”
Under U.S. copyright law, the owner of the rights in a “work made for hire” is the person who commissioned the work, not the person who performed it. Thus, Lil’ Joe Records essentially argued that the members of 2 Live Crew never owned the works and therefore had no right to reclaim the copyright in them.
Additionally, the label argued that even if the two Live Crew members and their heirs had the right to reclaim the copyright, they did not have the majority of votes needed to do so.
That’s because as part of his 2000 bankruptcy case, Mark Ross (late) agreed that he had “no rights (mastering or publishing) to any previous recordings owned by Lil’ Joe Records” and Christopher Wong (also Deceased) settled a lawsuit filed in 2002 against Lil’ Joe Records, agreeing that Lil Joe and Weinberger “own all right, title and interest in and to all copyrights and trademarks previously transferred to them in the bankruptcy of Luke Records and Luther Campbell” .
Lil Joe Records’ original complaint can be read in full here .
2 Live Crew members and heirs responded to the lawsuit with their own counterclaim, arguing that the band’s music was not a work-for-hire; instead, the three band members sold their existing rights to the music to Campbell and Luke Records, After 35 years, they are legally entitled to exercise their termination rights.
They asked the court to state that “they have the relevant rights and the ability to terminate the relevant transfer, and have effectively served the termination notice.”
Their counterclaim can be read in full here.
The case raises two key issues that need to be resolved: whether the termination rights can be sold to a third party in a bankruptcy sale, and whether the members of 2 Live Crew are indeed employees of Campbell Luke Records and therefore artists for rent.
Judge’s Rule: Termination rights cannot be transferred in bankruptcy
The first of two key issues has been resolved Judge Darrin Gales The case was heard earlier this year in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The judge presiding over the 2 Live Crew case ruled that terminating the right to sell copyright to third parties was personal Yes, not one property Yes, so it cannot be transferred to a third party even in a bankruptcy reorganization, just like 2 Live Crew’s music.
In his ruling, Justice Gales cited section 203 of the Copyright Act, which provides that termination “shall take effect notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, including the making of a will or the making of any future grant”.
“By enacting this provision, Congress expressed a federal interest in protecting the personal rights of authors to terminate assignments or licenses,” Judge Gales wrote.
He also cited a 1976 House of Representatives report that accompanied changes to copyright law that introduced the right to terminate copyright transfers.
“Such provisions are needed because authors have an unequal bargaining position, in part because the value of a work cannot be determined until it is exploited,” the House report said.
What decision did the jury have to make: Is the music of 2 Live Crew a “work for hire”?
With the termination rights issue resolved, a key question remains for the jury to decide: whether 2 Live Crew’s music is indeed a “work for hire.”
If the jury finds that is the case, then the issue of termination rights is irrelevant because the members of 2 Live Crew were never the legal creators of the music – Luke Records was, and as Judge Gales determined, the termination rights Rights are granted only to individuals.
No one disputes that Lil Joe Records purchased the rights to 2 Live Crew’s music, compositions and trademarks in 1996.
No one disputed that the 1996 sales agreement “made no reference to future termination rights” or that “Wong Won, Ross and Hobbs made no claim that they had or were entitled… to either of the 2 rights”. The copyright of Crew has been transferred to Lil’ Joe,” in the words of Judge Gales.
The problem is what happened before.
According to Campbell and Ross and Wong Won’s heirs, between 1986 and 1989, two Live Crew members entered into a verbal agreement to sell the rights to their band’s music to Campbell and his Luke Records (then known as Skyywalker). company – things changed when George Lucas sued the record label).
The oral agreement was apparently written in 1990.
However, “it is not clear from the face of the 1990 agreement whether the members of 2 Live Crew intended to transfer their copyrights to Skyywalker Records or to have Skyywalker own those rights from the outset as the group’s employer,” said copyright attorney Aaron Moss He wrote on his blog to analyze the case.
The wording of the agreement does hint at some kind of employer-employee relationship, as it “gives Skyywalker Records the right to specify the time and place of recording, as well as the right to require members of 2 Live Crew to re-record the material until an agreement acceptable to the label is obtained.” recording, and has the sole authority to approve the results of the group’s recorded meetings,” Moss noted.
Still, Campbell and his heirs insist they are not employees of Skywalker and/or Luke Records.
In the affidavit, they claimed that “the group made its own artistic choices and was free to set its own schedule, that the record label had no authority to assign additional projects, and that the record label did not provide any health protection to the members”. , paid leave or other benefits. All of these factors are detrimental to the employer-employee relationship,” Moss wrote.
For its part, Lil’ Joe Records relied on another agreement: a 1991 agreement signed by the band members that stated that 2 Live Crew’s recordings were indeed rental works.
The problem is that the 1991 agreement provides that “the term of this Agreement shall be one year from the date of this Agreement.” In other words, the deal didn’t go into effect until 1991 – well before Campbell and his heirs tried to claw back the rights to the three albums.
Therefore, even if 2 Live Crew were indeed employees working on “works for hire” starting in 1991, they may not have been when they recorded the early albums at issue in this case.
In short, there are a lot of factual discrepancies here.
The dispute includes “the nature of the business relationship and the manner in which two Live Crew members are compensated.” The two sides further argued [2 Live Crew] What albums were recorded, whether Luke Records paid for the recording studio fees, whether Luke Records could assign other projects outside of 2 Live Crew’s obligation to create the album, the length of the working relationship between the parties, and whether 2 Live Crew members had any work to create of their own and freedom of personal agenda,” Judge Gales wrote.
“There is also a dispute as to whether the termination notice was valid due to an underlying factual dispute as to which agreement was the valid grant of copyright ownership.”
Regardless, the jury has to decide who is right from all this.
What happens next?
Lil’ Joe Records owner Joseph Weinberg took the stand on the first day of the jury trial.
According to Law360, Weinberger told the jury that he was convinced that the two members of the Live Crew were employees of Luke Records in the early 1990s because he was the label’s general counsel and chief financial officer at the time.
In the days to come, we can expect members of the opposing team to testify and argue equally forcefully that 2 Live Crew are not employees of Luke Records.
All of this is made murkier as everyone involved is trying to remember what happened more than thirty years ago – and in the case of the heirs, they may have been told about it years ago.
To support their case, Campbell and the heirs introduced as evidence all the documents they could glean from long ago—including, for example, various copyright registrations from the 1980s and 1990s that listed individual members of 2 Live Crew as Songwriter.
Can these be evidence that convinces the jury? This case, more than many others, appears to hinge on who performs best on the witness stand – who the jury finds most convincing.global music business
