By: Zachary Wadlé

The recording industry has been hard hit over the past decade.  With the advent of mp3s, iPods, and iTunes, the entire industry business model has been upended.  Unfortunately for record labels, the hits just may keep on coming.  Courtesy of the Copyright Act of 1976, record labels could soon lose copyrights over hugely popular songs authored from the late 1970’s forward that generate substantial licensing cash for the industry.  Beginning in 2013, some of the most popular musical works of this era will likely be at the center of a hard-fought battle over future ownership rights.

The Copyright Act of 1976 permits the artists of copyrighted works to terminate a grant of rights and reclaim their ownership of the works under certain conditions.  For works created on or after January 1, 1978, artists can reclaim rights to these works beginning 35 years after the original grant, which starts in 2013.  The previous copyright law required artists to wait at least 56 years to reclaim their rights.  Congress’s move to revise the copyright law in1976 and shorten the time artists must wait to reclaim rights was driven by the belief that new artists tend to sign bad deals when they’re young, hungry, and largely unknown to the public.  Congress determined that such artists deserved the option to own their compositions sooner than allowed under the previous copyright law, especially should their tunes prove to be popular (and lucrative to the record label who signed them to a presumably one-sided deal).Continue Reading Recording Industry Braces For Potential Impact of 1976 Copyright Act Termination Rights

By: David Muradyan

Restaurants, bars, night clubs and similar establishments who play copyrighted music or have live performers play the compositions from copyrighted music should pay particular attention to a recent Ninth Circuit case, where the court awarded plaintiffs statutory damages as well as substantial attorney’s fees.

In Range Road Music, Inc. et al. v. East Coast Foods, Inc. et al., 10-55691, 2012 WL 502510 (9th Cir. 2012), several music companies (“Music Companies”) who owned copyrights to certain songs and who were members of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (“ASCAP”) sued East Coast Foods, Inc. and its principal shareholder and sole officer and director, Herbert Hudson, for copyright infringement arising out of musical performances of eight copyrighted works at one of East Coast’s locations. (ASCAP is a performing rights society that licenses the music of its members and collects royalties whenever that music is performed publicly). East Coast owned and operated the Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles chain of restaurants in Southern California, including the Long Beach, California location. Shortly after the Long Beach location opened and for a period of seven years thereafter, ASCAP contacted East Coast to offer it a license to perform music by ASCAP members, but East Coast refused. As a result, ASCAP engaged Scott Greene, an independent investigator to visit the location and investigate whether copyright infringement was occurring at the venue. Greene visited Roscoe’s and conducted an investigation of the various musical compositions that were performed, and submitted his report to ASCAP, concluding that copyright infringement occurred with respect to eight songs owned by the Music Companies. Continue Reading Restaurants and Bars Beware: Failure to Obtain a License to Play a Copyrighted Music May Expose you to Substantial Damages