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Ray Charles Foundation sues soul star’s children over copyright claims

By | Published on Tuesday 3 April 2012

Ray Charles

The Ray Charles Foundation is taking legal action against some of the late soul star’s children, claiming that they have reneged on an agreement reached with their father before he died in 2004 regarding his estate, by attempting to reclaim ownership of the copyright in some of the songs he wrote.

As previously reported, a bit of copyright legislation passed in the late 1970s in the US gives American songwriters the option to reclaim copyrights in works they previously assigned to a third party, usually a publisher, after 35 years (for works written after the law was passed, longer for works that already existed). The impact of that act is only now really kicking in.

Seemingly seven of Charles’s children are trying to exercise that right over some of their late father’s works. But, the Foundation says, prior to his death, all of the soul singer’s children agreed to forego any future claims to their father’s estate in return for becoming beneficiaries of a $500,000 trust. The rest of Charles’s fortune, including future income from his copyrights, was left to the Foundation, which supports research and education programmes for the hearing impaired, as well as youth education initiatives. Therefore, the children have no right to try and reclaim control of the copyrights in their father’s songs.

Moreover, the Foundation’s lawsuit claims, Charles entered into a new deal with his publisher in 1980 regards a bunch of his songs, which used up his ‘one time claim back’ option anyway. And other works the Charles’s children are trying to reclaim ownership of were written on a ‘work for hire’ basis for his publisher, therefore the publishing company not the songwriter is legally the author, and thus the claim back right does not apply (this is how the record companies are planning to argue that the 35 year claim back rule is not relevant when it comes to sound recordings).

In its lawsuit, which seeks to block the Charles children’s copyright claims as well as demanding damages, the Foundation says: “[We] depend upon the income received from the said intellectual property and contract rights to continue the wishes of Ray Charles. Without the royalties from the music, we cannot fund our programmes”.

They continued: “The self-serving attempts on the part of the defendants to deprive the Foundation of its said intellectual property and contract rights not only is contrary to the express wishes of their father and in breach of the agreement they signed and promises that they made, but is contrary to the best interests of those innocent parties who would be benefited by the grants made by the Foundation”.

Legal reps for Charles’ children are yet to respond.



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