Re: [ARSCLIST] Brunswick Records rights/Universal

[Bob Conrad <bob618@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Richter wrote:

> Karl Miller wrote:
>
> > While I am not an lawyer, don't quote me...but it was my understanding:
> >
> > Round one had Naxos being sued in Federal Court. The district court
> > (Federal) in the State of New York granted summary judgment to Naxos. 
> > The
> > reasons being cited included that even if Capitol had been given a 
> > license
> > to issue the EMI recordings, that the UK copyrights expired and that EMI
> > had lost ownership and did not have the right to sell license to Capitol
> > or anyone else for that matter. Other aspects of the decision 
> > included the
> > notion that "abandonment of copyright" (other companies had already 
> > issued
> > some of the material and had not been sued)
> > indicated that Capitol had no interest in the recordings, and further,
> > that Naxos' reissues were an improvement on the recordings. I also 
> > find it
> > interesting that the Federal court cited the notion that the original
> > recordings were obsolete.
>
>
> I'm afraid you have been seriously misinformed. The lower court's 
> decision has been available and I commend it to you; it is 
> surprisingly readable for such a document. I am not an attorney of any 
> sort but I was interested enough to find the decision and to come to 
> the following conclusions relative to your post - reported here from 
> memory.
>
> 1. Yes, UK copyright had expired.
>
> 2. The relationship between EMI and Capitol is more complex and I do 
> not believe it was addressed in the decision.
>
> 3. The "abandonment" was explicit in a formal letter from the 
> president of Capitol to Yale with respect to sale of transfers from 
> the Yale collection.
>
> 4. Naxos's improvement was part of the argument against Capitol's 
> claim of damages. In essence, the judge found that since Capitol had 
> the primary material, they could exploit Naxos's work if the market 
> justified the investment and thereby come up with a superior product.
>
> 5. Neither the judgement of "obsolete" nor any other value measure was 
> offered that I can recall. The decision was based on objective, legal 
> points only.
>
> What the federal appeals court asked of the New York Supreme Court was 
> their position on the period of copyright in New York; the case was 
> not turned over or remanded to the state court (I believe that would 
> be impossible between jurisdictions) and I have not read the decision 
> you cite, but have saved it for review. Neither do I have any insight 
> into whether anyone will or has appealed further. I will say that the 
> lower court's summary judgement was one of the most comprehensive and 
> most clearly written I have seen. Unfortunately, that has little 
> weight at this stage or beyond.
>
> Note that the Supreme Court position on copyright could be accepted 
> without compromising the district court's decision - for example, by 
> regarding the positive act of abandonment as having the effect of 
> placing the recordings in the public domain.
>
> Mike


I'm afraid you've both been misinformed. This was a New York state court 
case. There was no Federal court involved here.

Hasn't anyone taken the time to read:

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub135/sec3.html

Best,

Bob Conrad
Fort Lee, NJ