IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—5th Cir.: Pyrrhic award for Texas record label?, (Dec 19, 2025)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The label wins on the merits over the rights to music by a Mexican band, but walks away with a miniscule award of attorney fees.

A Texas record label that prevailed in a jury trial after a seven-year legal battle over the rights to several albums by a popular Mexican group was properly awarded only $50,000 in attorney fees, the U.S. Court of Appeals had held. But the court, in finding that district court did not abuse its discretion by rejecting the label’s demand for over $600,000 in fees, affirmed a critical aspect of the label’s victory on the merits (Tierra Caliente Music Group, S.A. De C.V. v. Ser-ca Discos, Inc., No. 24-40816 (5th Cir. Dec. 18, 2025)).

The lawsuit arose out of two agreements that Eliseo Robles, the frontman for Mexican music group La Leyenda, entered into on behalf of the band. The first agreement, executed in sometime between 2010 and 2012—the date was disputed—required the band to record a series of albums over a five-year period exclusively for the Mexican subsidiary of Texas-based Ser-ca Discos. In 2015, a date five years after the Ser-ca contract expired if that agreement was signed in 2010—but within the contract period if the agreement was signed in 2011 or 2012—the band purported to enter into a second exclusivity contract with music producers (and brothers) German Chavez and Domingo Chavez. The Chavez brothers then assigned their distribution rights to Tierra Caliente Music Group in two different batches—the U.S. distribution rights to the songs to Tierra Calienta’s d/b/a Midas Music and the global rights to Tierra Caliente’s d/b/a Remex Music.

With two different sets of putative owners to the songs—Ser-ca on the one hand, based on the early 2010s agreement, and Tierra Caliente on the other, based on the later agreement—dispute was certain to flare up. And so it did after Tierra Caliente uploaded to Spotify and other online music providers certain songs from the albums, as well as uploading to YouTube certain music videos exploiting those songs. Ser-ca, claiming the right to the songs under its own contract with the band, began sending takedown notice to YouTube pursuant to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

Tierra Caliente sued Ser-ca in 2018 under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), a provision added to the Copyright Act by the DMCA that allows the victim of bad-faith takedown notices to collect damages and attorney fees. Ser-ca, in turn, counterclaimed for tortious interference with contract and prospective economic advantage, misappropriation, unfair competition in violation of the federal Lanham Act, common-law unfair competition, common-law trademark infringement, violation of the DMCA, and unjust enrichment.

A lengthy series of court opinions then followed. The court first rejected Ser-ca’s motion to dismiss the Section 512(f) complaint, which was founded on the grounds that the copyrights to the songs were not registered. In the court’s view, however, registration was not a prerequisite to a Section 512(f) suit, as opposed to a copyright infringement suit. In the same opinion, the court refused to give weight to a judgment from a Mexico court that ostensibly adjudicated the rights to the works to Ser-ca. “Without the benefit of evidentiary aid from a Mexican law expert,” the court found, it could “only hazard a ‘best guess’ as to what the Mexican tribunal actually concluded.”

Further motions inevitably followed. In a lengthy 2022 opinion, the court found that Ser-ca had standing to bring its trademark claims, that Ser-ca’s counterclaims were not moot, that Ser-ca had not failed to join as a necessary party the band itself, that the case should not be dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, that Ser-ca had now shown—with further evidence—that the Mexican opinion granting it ownership of the works should be recognized as dispositive in the United States, that Ser-ca’s counterclaims were not barred by the statute of limitations, that Ser-ca had not made an adequate showing of lost profits on its claims, that many of Cer-ca’s common law claims were preempted by the Copyright Act, and that Ser-ca was entitled to summary judgment on Tierra Caliente’s DMCA complaint (on the grounds that Ser-ca had now shown that its ownership of the rights to the works). Later, in a further summary judgment opinion, the court struck Tierra Caliente’s claim for actual damages as well.

One aspect of the court’s 2022 summary judgment opinion merits some further discussion. Among the many motions that Tierra Caliente brought was a motion for judgment on the pleadings as to Ser-ca’s counterclaims for tortious interference, misappropriation, and unjust enrichment. Those claims essentially revolved around Ser-ca’s assertion that in bringing takedown claims of their own against Ser-ca’s uploads of the songs, the two companies interfered with Ser-ca’s existing contracts and prospective business arrangements with its own distributor of the works. Tierra Caliente argued that these counterclaims were preempted by the Copyright Act, and the court agreed. Each of these claims was preempted, the court found, because they all sought to “to vindicate and preserve [Ser-ca’s] alleged exclusive rights of distribution within the meaning of § 106 [of the Copyright Act], and [Ser-ca] fail[ed] to explain how these claims present any extra element that would otherwise defeat the equivalency test.

The case then went to trial, and a jury found wholly in Ser-ca’s favor—including an award of attorney fees in the amount of $50,000—and the district court entered judgment to the same effect. Both parties appealed, leading to this opinion.

Preemption and DMCA claim. The court of appeals, in a brief unpublished opinion, easily affirmed the judgment. With respect to the issue of preemption, the court noted, Ser-ca’s appeal was rejected “for the same reasons provided by the district court,” with no further explanation. The same sparse reasoning applied to Tierra Caliente’s challenge to the grant of summary judgment in Ser-ca’s favor on its DMCA claim.

Attorney fees. But while Ser-ca prevailed on the merits of much of the dispute, it failed to persuade the court of appeals of perhaps the most important aspect of its appeal—its request for attorney fees. Ser-ca had requested attorney fees in the amount of over $600,000—a far cry from the $50,000 amount that the jury award. The court found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in upholding the amount of attorney fees. The district court had reasonably determined, the court of appeals, that Tierra Caliente did not bring frivolous arguments, that it had good-faith motivations, and that its arguments were reasonable despite the contrary verdict. Further, the court of appeals noted, the district court had reasonably determined that the requested amount of $629,518.45 did not reflect the “hours reasonably expended to achieve [Ser-Ca’s] partial success.” Those findings were sufficient, the court of appeals found, to uphold the modest award of fees.

The Case is No. 24-40816.

Judge: Per Curiam.

Attorneys: Ricardo Pumarejo, Jr. (Pumarejo Law) for Tierra Caliente Music Group, S.A. De C.V., d/b/a Remex Music. Martin Jonathan Siegel (Law Offices of Martin J. Siegel, PC) for Ser-Ca Discos, Inc.

Companies: Tierra Caliente Music Group, S.A. De C.V., d/b/a Remex Music; Ser-Ca Discos, Inc.

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