IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—S.D. Tex.: Record company owned master recordings made by Tejano musicians under recording agreements, (Jun 30, 2016)

By Thomas Long, J.D.

Corpus Christi, Texas-based Hacienda Records L.P. established that it owned master sound recordings made by Tejano music artists Ruben Ramos, Hugo Cesar Guerrero, and Arturo Rene Serrata, pursuant to various recording agreements dating back to the 1980s, the federal district court in Corpus Christi has ruled (Hacienda Records, L.P. v. Ramos, June 29, 2016, Ramos, R.).

After counsel for the musicians sent a letter to Hacienda requesting that Hacienda cease and desist exploiting songs featuring performances by musicians and asking for copies of various documents—including contracts or agreements with respect to certain songs and documents reflecting the number of recordings made and sold by Hacienda—Hacienda filed a declaratory judgment action against the musician, seeking a declaration that it owned the relevant master sound recordings and compilations (that is, released albums), that the musicians and their assigns had no copyright ownership in the master recordings and compilations, and that any copyright registrations by the musicians to the master recordings and compilations were invalid. The musicians filed copyright infringement counterclaims; those claims were resolved in Hacienda’s favor in previous rulings.

Transfers of ownership. The master sound recordings at issue involved albums by Ramos, Guerrero, and Serrata, respectively. Each musician obtained copyright registrations for their respective recordings. With respect to Ramos, Hacienda produced undisputed evidence that Ramos entered into an exclusive artist recording agreement with Hacienda in 1985. This agreement provided that Ramos’s copyright interests in the sound recordings made for Hacienda were transferred to Hacienda, in exchange for Hacienda’s advancing production costs for the recordings, the court said. All of the albums for which Ramos claimed ownership were covered by the agreement. For each one, Hacienda provided original contributions in the form of sound engineering, editing, mixing, and mastering, and then each sound recording was published and released by Hacienda with the affixed copyright notice in Hacienda’s name. Accordingly, consistent with standard practice in the music industry, Hacienda owned the copyright to the master sound recordings associated with the albums, the court concluded. Guerrero entered into an identical agreement with Hacienda in 2002; accordingly, Hacienda owned the copyrights to the master recordings Guerrero made for the company. Serrata entered into four recordings agreements with Hacienda; these agreements were sufficient to transfer his copyright interests, the court found. In addition, Serrata admitted that Hacienda owned the master sound recordings at issue.

Retention of copyright interests. There was no evidence of joint authorship or that the musicians retained any interest in the recordings. Hacienda’s CDs included an attribution of copyright notice in Hacienda’s name only as the copyright owner, and the written agreements between the parties made it clear that Hacienda was the owner of the masters. Accordingly, the musicians and their assigns had no copyright interest in the masters and the albums, the court said.

Copyright registrations. The musicians previously brought counterclaims against Hacienda for copyright infringement based on copyright registrations they obtained for the sound recordings listed above. Hacienda was entitled to a declaratory judgment that those registrations were invalid because musicians or their attorney purchased Hacienda’s mixed and mastered CDs and then wrongfully registered them as their own with the U.S. Copyright Office, the court found. Moreover, most of the registrations were submitted more than five years after Hacienda’s creation, publication, and release of the sound recordings; most contained false dates and false claims of authorship; and all contained false claims of ownership.

The case is No. 2:14-cv-00019.

Attorneys: Roland Garcia (Greenberg Traurig LLP) for Hacienda Records, L.P. Heather Scilley Von Sternberg (Showalter Law Firm) for Ruben Ramos.

Companies: Hacienda Records, L.P.

Cases: Copyright TexasNews