Part 27

 The earthquake came between 1995-2000 in four major cases: La Cienega Music v. Z.Z. Top (California, 1995); Mayhew v. Gusto Records (Tennessee, 1997); Mayhew v. Allsup (Tennessee, 1999); and ABKO Music v. LaVerne (California, 2000). All dealt with a single question: does issuing a phonorecord “publish” its composition?

In La Cienega Music v. Z.Z. Top, John Lee Hooker and Bernard Besman wrote and recorded “Boogie Chillen” in 1948. Hooker assigned his half of the composition to Besman, who registered it as sheet music in 1967 on behalf of La Cienega Music. They wrote a second version of “Boogie Chillen” in 1950. Hooker also assigned this version to Besman, who registered it as sheet music in 1970. A third version of the song was recorded by Hooker on an album, Canned Heat, in 1970. It was authorized by La Cienega, and was registered as a unitary musical work (PA/PAU) in 1992 by Besman and Hooker. In 1973 Z.Z. Top released a best-selling song called “La Grange.” In subsequent litigation, Z.Z. Top’s primary defense was that “Boogie Chillen” was in the public domain (i.e. they largely admitted that they copied parts of “Boogie Chillen”).

Z.Z. Top claimed the three versions of the song were published in 1948, 1950 and 1970, the dates they were issued to the public. La Cienega claimed they were published in 1967, 1970 and 1992, the dates when registration was secured.

The court explicitly declined to follow the Rosette v. Rainbow approach, which would have adopted the La Cienega dates. The fear of the court was that the Rosette approach would have given the owner of a pre-1972 sound recording an incentive to delay registering a work until it was discovered that someone was profitably infringing it. Because the copyright duration is 28 years, a forthright owner who registered a work got 28 years of coverage, but a disingenuous owner got unlimited coverage, at least until an successful infringer was discovered. The owner then registered, starting the 28-year clock. A song like “Boogie Chillen” sat in the deep freeze after its initial success, only to have the licensing clock start after 25 years when Z.Z. Top made it a chart-buster in 1973. Had the song been forthrightly copyrighted in 1948, the year it was written and first recorded, its copyright would have expired in 1976, so La Cienega could have received as few as three year’s royalties from Z.Z. Top.

Judge Fernandez, in a dissent, tried to salvage the Rosette system, which he called “quite logical, indeed correct.” Acknowledging that there was a potential problem of owners holding their compositions back from copyright in the hopes that some lucrative infringer may stumble onto the scene, he suggested that the Rosette system be slightly modified to prevent registration beyond 28 years after the first date of creation or publication. “Thus,” he concluded, “the author who does not register in a timely fashion cannot artfully extend the time during which he can exploit his work.”

To be continued…