A jury in a Florida federal court has ruled that 2 Live Crew members and their heirs can take back the master copyrights on their music.
However, that might not be the last word in the ongoing legal battle, as lawyers for Lil’ Joe Records, which currently holds the 2 Live Crew copyrights, have filed a motion to overturn the jury’s decision.
The jury found that 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell, and the heirs of two other members of the group – Christopher Wong Won and Mark Ross – made a valid claim under a US copyright provision that allows the creators of works to take back their copyrights, Law360 reported on Wednesday (October 16).
“All of our albums, we won, we got all our s**t back from Lil Joe Weinberger,” Campbell said in front of the Dade County Federal Courthouse, as quoted by Rock the Bells.
“God is so good, you just gotta believe in him.”
Under section 302 of the Copyright Act, a work’s creators can request that licensed copyright holders return copyrights to them 35 years after the work was created.
2 Live Crew’s copyrights were held by Lil’ Joe Records, owned by Joseph Weinberger, who bought the rights for $800,000 in 1996, when Luther Campbell’s label, Luke Records, was forced into bankruptcy court.
Prior to that, 2 Live Crew’s members had sold their rights in the music to Luke Records, although when this happened, and under what conditions, was a matter of dispute during the trial.
In 2020, Campbell, Mark Ross and the heirs of the late Christopher Wong Won sent a “notice of termination” to Lil Joe Records, notifying the company that they would be taking back the master rights to 2 Live Crew’s first three albums, The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are, Move Somethin’, and As Nasty As They Wanna Be.
The termination dates were set in 2022, 2023, and 2024, the 35th anniversaries, respectively, of the albums’ release dates.
Lil Joe Records filed a lawsuit against Campbell, Ross (who died earlier this year), and Wong Won’s heirs, arguing – among other things – that 2 Live Crew’s members were legally employees of Luke Records, and therefore 2 Live Crew’s music were “works for hire.”
Under the law, the owner of copyrights on works for hire is the entity that commissioned the work (in this case, Luke Records), and not the people hired to create the work.
And because the right to terminate copyrights is solely meant for individuals and not businesses, neither Campbell nor the other heirs can take back the copyrights, Lil Joe Records argued.
The 2 Live Crew members and heirs responded to the lawsuit by filing a countersuit of their own, in which they argued that the group’s music was not a work for hire; rather, the three group members had sold their existing rights in the music to Campbell and Luke Records, and 35 years later, they are legally entitled to exercise their termination rights.
They asked the court to declare “that they own relevant rights, had the ability to terminate the relevant transfers, and have effectively served notices of termination.”
You can read MBW’s detailed explanation of the case here.
Despite the jury siding with 2 Live Crew’s members and heirs, the legal battle over the rights may not be over yet.
On Thursday (October 17), lawyers for Lil Joe Records filed a “motion for judgment as a matter of law,” in effect asking the judge to overturn the jury’s verdict.
These motions ask the court to enter a particular judgment if it can be concluded that no reasonable jury could find otherwise. Although these motions are typically filed after the case has been heard and before it is handed to the jury, in certain circumstances, judges can rule on such a motion after a verdict has been reached.
“The 4 members of 2 Live Crew… transferred whatever sound recording copyright rights they had to 2 Live Crew’s music to Luke Records, Inc.,” states the motion, which can be read in full here.
“Campbell and Luke Records subsequently filed bankruptcy where all of their sound recording copyright rights to 2 Live Crew’s music… were transferred in bankruptcy and sold to Lil’ Joe ‘free and clear of any and all liens, claims, encumbrances, charges, setoffs or recoupments of any kind’, thereafter ‘no royalties, whether as artist, producer, writer, publisher, or in any other capacity, on any of the masters’ are due to [Luke Records owner] Luther Campbell.”
2 Live Crew was among the most prominent and controversial hip-hop acts of the late 1980s and early 1990s. At a time when racy lyrics were still rare in pop music, their albums – particularly As Nasty As They Wanna Be (1989) – drew negative attention from some corners.
The group’s members found themselves charged with obscenity for performing their songs in public, and As Nasty As They Wanna Be was declared by a judge to be illegal in South Florida.
Eventually, the group was found not guilty of obscenity, and an appellate court overturned the album ban.Music Business Worldwide