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28 May 2015Copyright

Turtles copyright dispute rumbles on after judge grants class action motion

A US court has ruled that a class action lawsuit concerning royalty payments for songs recorded before 1972 can proceed, in the latest development of a dispute between digital radio station SiriusXM and rock band The Turtles.

Judge Philip Gutierrez, at the US District Court for the Central District of California, granted The Turtles’s motion for class certification yesterday (May 27).

By granting the motion it means that musicians besides The Turtles will be able to claim damages for copyright infringement by adding their name to the complaint.

The complaint was filed by former members of the band Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman under a company called Flo & Eddie.

Flo & Eddie owns the copyright to the entire back catalogue by The Turtles.

The class action complaint follows a ruling from the US District Court for the Central District of California last September that said SiriusXM was liable for damages after playing pre-1972 songs by The Turtles without the band’s permission. The songs included “Happy Together” and “It Ain’t Me Babe”.

Despite pre-1972 works not being protected by the 1976 Copyright Act, the band had argued that the works are protected from reproduction under California’s civil code.

In its attempt to prevent the class action lawsuit, SiriusXM argued that the court would have difficulty “establishing ownership of pre-1972 recordings” by parties in the class “because there is no registration system creating a presumption of ownership”.

But Gutierrez rejected that this would be an issue.

He said that while some “evidentiary showing will be necessary to determine the rightful owner”, SiriusXM has failed to show that the “verification process will be drawn out” and will ultimately delay the proceedings.

SiriusXM also argued that it wanted the opportunity to assert its defence in individual cases against other right owners.

Again, Gutierrez dismissed the challenge.

“The district court concludes that it would be inefficient for recording owners, Sirius, and the courts to litigate these similar factual and legal circumstances a thousand times separately.”

Neither SiriusXM nor The Turtles had responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

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24 September 2014   A judge has backed 1960s US rock band The Turtles in its copyright infringement dispute against a satellite radio station.