No copyright, no royalties as Cayman Music claim dismissed

Record label Cayman Music has had its claim to the copyright of several Bob Marley songs dismissed today, June 4, by a UK court.

Cayman Music had brought the claim against record label Blue Mountain Music, a subsidiary of Island Records, concerning 13 songs written between 1973 and 1976.

‘No Woman, No Cry’, the well known Marley hit, was among a collection of songs that also included ‘Johnny Was’, ‘Talking Blues’ and ‘War’, to be claimed by Cayman Music.

Cayman Music had entered into a copyright licensing agreement with the reggae musician in 1973, and then later sold the rights to Island Records in 1992.

The dispute, however, was complicated by the fact that Marley had claimed  the songs were actually written by his friends and associates.

This intentional misattribution was apparently motivated by the fact that Marley claimed he received no money from Island Records when he signed with the label.

Judge Richard Meade QC at the England & Wales High Court  ruled that Cayman Music had never legally held the copyright to the songs in question. Meade stated that the 1992 licensing agreement did “not address [the] misattributed works at all”.

In 1988, Cayman Music had brought a claim over the 13 songs against Rita Marley, Marley’s wife and head of his estate, but it was dismissed by a court in New York.

A spokesman for Cayman Music said it was “a triumph of law over justice – an accepted fraud causing millions of dollars of losses to Cayman Music” – and that “a few mis-interpreted, dusty words on an ill-conceived agreement trumps years of theft, mis-appropriation and lies”.

“Thank God for our legal system,” the spokesman added sarcastically.

Island Records has not responded to a request to comment from WIPR.