IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—E.D. Cal.: Long-running music copyright dispute will have to go to a jury, (Jun 27, 2025)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

Three albums by a popular Mexican band are at issue.

A jury will have to decide whether a California record label acquired a share of three albums recorded in its studio by virtue of its artistic contribution to the production of the works, the federal court for Fresno, California has held. The court, in rejecting competing motions for summary judgment by the parties, also found that the record was disputed over whether two supporting musicians in the band also owned a share of the albums (Yellowcake, Inc. v. Morena Music, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-00787-JLT-BAM (E.D. Cal. June 26, 2025)).

The lawsuit involves competing claims to three albums by Los Originales de San Juan, a Jalisco-born band that has been performing for over three decades. Jesus Chavez, the founder and lead singer for the group, orally agreed to transfer the rights to the album to California-based Morena Music, the group’s record label at the time. But Chavez later purported to give the same rights to the same albums—this time in writing—to Yellowcake Music Group, a California digital rights management and audio-visual acquisition company. Yellowcake and Morena each claim rights over the albums—Morena by virtue of its oral deal with Chavez and its role in the production of the albums, and Yellowcake by virtue of its written agreement with Chavez.

Yellowcake struck first, filing a complaint Morena in 2020 that accused the record label of unlawfully distributing the three albums in violation of the Copyright Act. Morena filed an answer and counterclaim that accused Yellowcake of violating the Copyright Act through its own acts of distribution of the albums. The counterclaim also brought allegations under California statutory and common law.

The court partially granted Yellowcake’s motion to dismiss the counterclaim in March 2021. The court dismissed the copyright claim because under the Copyright Act, Morena could not have obtained ownership to the albums by virtue of a contract not in writing. Moreover, to the extent that Morena argued that it was a joint author of the albums by virtue of its contributions as the producer, that would not give Morena a basis to sue Yellowcake because one joint owner cannot sue another joint owner for infringement. Finally, to the extent that Morena claimed that the band performed the recordings as a work for hire, the court found, that argument also failed because of the lack of a written agreement. In a follow up opinion, after Morena’s filing of an amended counterclaim, the court rejected Morena’s new argument that the Chavez-Yellowcake agreement was void ab initio.

The parties then cross-moved for summary judgment on Yellowcake’s copyright infringement claim, leading to this opinion.

Ownership of the copyrights. The court found that Yellowcake was not entitled to summary judgment on its claim of sole ownership of the copyrights. Morena argued that it was at least a co-owner of the works for two reasons. For one, Morena argued, there was evidence that it was a co-owner because of its producing contributions to the albums during the studio recordings. The court found that there was ample evidence for Morena to go to a jury on this issue.

The court found that Morena also had ample evidence to go to the jury on a second theory as well—its claim that the bandleader, Chavez, never had the right to assign the entire copyright to Yellowcake in the first place. The claim rested on the fact that the two other members of the band, Domingo Torres Flores and Alfonso Vargas, were also joint authors of the work because of their own creative contributions to the three albums. Morena also argued that those two band-members subsequently transferred their rights to Morena in written assignments. Yellowcake claimed in response that the assignments were contrivances after-the-fact and that Flores and Vargas were never co-owners of the works. But the answer to that question, at the end, the court found, depended on credibility determinations—something that only a jury could do.

The Case is No. 1:20-cv-00787-JLT-BAM.

Judge: Thurston, J.

Attorneys: Thomas P. Griffin (Hefner Stark & Marois, LLP) and Seth L. Berman (Abrams, Fensterman, Fensterman, Eisman, Formato, Ferrara, Wolf & Carone, LLP) for Yellowcake, Inc. Anthony R. Lopez (Law Offices of Lopez & Associates) and John Michael Begakis (AltView Law Group, LLP) for Morena Music, Inc.

Companies: Yellowcake, Inc.; Morena Music, Inc.

Cases: Copyright CaliforniaNews GCNNews