2 Live Crew, under the termination provision, is attempting to take back control of their catalog from Lil Joe Records, which purchased the Crew’s catalog in 1995 from their previous label. Under US copyright law, “creators who assign their copyrights to another party have a one-off opportunity to terminate that assignment and reclaim their rights after 35 years.” But Lil Joe Records has “filed a complaint on Thursday, requesting that a federal court in Florida rule that 2 Live Crew be prevented from using the termination right.”
Billboard reports that Lil Joe’s lawsuit claims that 2 Live Crew “failed to file proper notices, and points out that “aspects of bankruptcy law trump the termination right. The label also argues that the group’s music was created as a “work for hire” on their record label’s behalf, so they never really owned the rights to their work, to begin with.”
– Excerpt from an article for Complete Music Update by Chris Cooke. Read the full article here.
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