As digital technology and the online environment transform the distribution and use of intellectual property, our Copyright & Trademark group is on the front lines in protecting and enforcing our clients’ most important creative assets. Our trial-tested team represents a wide range of clients, from entrepreneurs to major corporations, from playwrights to media giants, and from individual songwriters to the country’s largest performing rights organizations.
Paul, Weiss Achieves Victory on Behalf of ASCAP
- Client News
- April 13, 2009
Practices
On April 9, Justice Barbara R. Kapnick of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, dismissed with prejudice an action brought by songwriter Melvin Van Peebles against our client ASCAP, a performing rights organization that licenses the right to perform its members' musical compositions.
The complaint asserted claims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence arising out of ASCAP's purported obligation to list all of Mr. Van Peebles' works on an Internet database launched by ASCAP in 1993, which contains only certain works in the ASCAP repertory.
Justice Kapnick -- accepting all of the arguments advanced in our motion to dismiss -- rejected all of Mr. Van Peebles' claims as untimely given that the conduct complained of (ASCAP's failure to list all of Mr. Van Peebles' works) occurred in 1993. The court further held that, in any event, each of Mr. Van Peebles' claims lacked merit: the contract claim failed because ASCAP has no contractual obligation to list all of an individual member's works on the database or to promote the works of an individual member; ASCAP did not owe Mr. Van Peebles a fiduciary duty by virtue of their licensing relationship; and the negligence claim was simply duplicative of the breach of contract claim.
The Paul, Weiss team included litigation partners Jay Cohen and Lynn Bayard, who argued the motion to dismiss.