You Really Got a Hold On Me

            I recently read that Smokey Robinson had settled a dispute with his ex-wife Claudette over his right to exercise the termination of copyright assignment in his songs under the 1976 Copyright Act.  While I am all for both marital harmony and post-marital harmony it would have been fascinating to see how a court might have interpreted this intersection of federal copyright law and domestic relations.

 

            Robinson had taken the somewhat unusual step of filing an action for a declaratory judgment apparently after receiving a letter from his former wife's counsel asserting a community property interest in the compositions in question, despite the fact that the couple  had been divorced nearly for three decades.  He wanted the court to confirm the fact that the Copyright Act gives the right to terminate assignments and recapture copyrights to the author alone and not an ex-spouse and presumably, despite whatever economic effect this might have on the ex-spouse).

            The Copyright Act is pretty clear in this particular area but it does provide some fairly troublesome questions for divorcing spouses.  One wonders if when divorcing in 1985, the Robinsons even contemplated that Smokey would be able to recapture the copyrights to his greatest hits.  Was there a duty of disclosure (of an event that might occur 29 years in the future)?  We often see how divorce settlements can be impacted by the Copyright Act but I think that this might have presented a different take on the issue.  As the clock begins to run on some of these massive hits from the 60s and beyond we will no doubt see more of these cases and they are tremendously important.

Marvin Gaye's Contributions to Domestic Relations Law

Music and law often interact in interesting ways.  Lately, I have been thinking about a record that for whatever reason had a big impact on me thirty years ago – Marvin Gaye's Here My Dear a double-album released at the end of 1978.

                What I had nearly forgotten was the fact that the album was designed by Gaye and his attorney as part of a divorce settlement with his first wife (Berry Gordy's sister) Anna.  Ostensibly, because Marvin could not afford to pay alimony or child support he and his attorney came up with the concept of assigning the royalties from his next album  to his former spouse – and like the great artist he was, Marvin took the concept and ran with it.  Many artists have done "break-up" albums (David Allen Coe, Bob Dylan and Bryan Ferry come to mind) but Marvin Gaye traces the entire course of a relationship from beginning to painful end.  All of this is contained in one of the most over-the-top sleeve designs of the '70's.  The album also contains one of the great romantic couplets of all time:  "Somebody tell me please, why do I have to pay attorney's fees?".

                Marvin Gaye was a troubled soul but a genius whose career was tragically cut short.   His contributions to music are legendary; it is nice to be able to note his singular contribution to family law.