IPEC says indie label owns rights to West End musical recordings

The rights to commercialise popular West End musical recordings including “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “Paint Your Wagon” belong to independent music label Henry Hadaway Organisation (HHO), a UK court has ruled.

On Wednesday, November 25, the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ruled that record label Pickwick infringed the works by selling compilations including the tracks.

Gordon Lorenz produced the recordings between 1991 and 1997 and entered into a licensing deal with Carlton Home Entertainment in 1993. The tracks were included on albums called “Shows Collection”, a compilation of popular West End musical tracks.

In 1999, Point Group acquired Carlton, but it dissolved five years later.

Lorenz, through his own production company, entered into a deal with HHO to commercially exploit the works in 2008. Lorenz also transferred the ownership to the copyright of songs such as “Guys and Dolls”, “Fiddler on the Roof” and “My Fair Lady”.

Lorenz died in 2011.

While Pickwick accepted at trial that it had not obtained the rights to reproduce and distribute the works through its own compilation called “The Shows Collection”, it contested HHO’s ownership of the copyright and Lorenz’s exclusive licensing deal with HHO.

Raymond Hartley, director at Pickwick, said the copyright to the recordings had been “vacated” following the demise of Point Group.

However, the court rejected Hartley’s argument and ruled that HHO was the “exclusive licensee” of tracks “Hello Dolly” and “Me and my Girl” and owned the copyright to numerous others.

A spokesperson for HHO told WIPR: "Pickwick knew they were infringing, in the absence of a license or an assignment.

"This has been a long-fought battle and it's sad it has had to escalate to the high court, however, we are now content that our rights have been defended. The Gordon Lorenz recordings are an important part of music history and we are proudly continuing to be part of it," he added.