Ray Charles Case To Set Important Copyright Termination Precedent

The 9th Circuit is set to decide an important case involving the children of Ray Charles and the charitable foundation to which Mr. Charles willed his right to receive royalties from his music publishing agreement with Warner-Chappell Music.   With more artists and their heirs terminating prior assignments of copyrights, this case will either help affirm the protection afforded to authors and their heirs under the U.S. Copyright Act or weaken the Act's protection of authors and their statutory heirs from premature transfers of their termination rights.

Section 304(c) of the U.S. Copyright Act provides the statutory heirs of deceased authors, in this case Mr. Charles' children, the sole right to terminate the assignment of copyrights from an author to a third party. The termination right may not be transferred by will or by any other "agreement to the contrary." Mr. Charles died before he was permitted under the statute to send the vast majority of termination notices