{"id":2730,"date":"2024-09-23T19:05:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T19:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/can-jay-z-take-back-reasonable-doubt\/"},"modified":"2024-09-23T19:05:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T19:05:55","slug":"can-jay-z-take-back-reasonable-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/can-jay-z-take-back-reasonable-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Jay-Z Take Back ‘Reasonable Doubt’?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tAttorneys for Jay-Z are now sparring with lawyers for New York City over whether he can use copyright termination to retake control of his debut album Reasonable Doubt<\/em> \u2013 a crucial question ahead of court-ordered auction of Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash<\/strong>\u2019s one-third stake in the label.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe city\u2019s child services agency, which wants to collect the more than $193,000 that Dash owes in unpaid child support, warned a federal judge in court filings last week that Jay-Z was using \u201cfalse\u201d threats of an approaching termination to drive down the price of Dash\u2019s stake in his company.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJay-Z\u2019s statements to the press have poisoned the environment for the auction,\u201d wrote Gerald Singleton<\/strong>, an attorney for the city. \u201cThose statements are false and extremely damaging to the City\u2019s interests in ensuring that the auction will generate sufficient funds to satisfy all existing child support arrearages and secure future child support payments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut on Monday, longtime Jay-Z lawyer Alex Spiro<\/strong> fired right back on behalf of Roc-A-Fella, saying neither the rapper nor his company had issued any such statements and that there was \u201cno merit to NYC\u2019s accusations.\u201d But he also confirmed that Jay-Z was in fact seeking to use termination to take back the album, Reasonable Doubt<\/em>, in 2031 \u2013 and that prospective buyers could make up their own minds about what that means.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPotential bidders have every right to assess whether they believe the notice of termination would be effective in 2031,\u201d Spiro told the judge.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs early as next month, the U.S. Marshals Service will sell off Dash\u2019s 33.3% interest in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose only real asset is the sound recording copyright to Reasonable Doubt<\/em>. Though the court-ordered auction was originally intended to pay off an $823,000 judgment in a civil lawsuit, New York City jumped into the case over Dash\u2019s child support debt. The state of New York later did the same, claiming Dash owes more than $8.7 million in back taxes and penalties.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella \u2014 label co-founders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem \u201cBiggs\u201d Burke<\/strong> \u2014 have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company\u2019s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February, and the sale could take place as early as Oct. 21.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the auction approaches, a minimum purchase price has been set at $3 million. But it has remained unclear what exactly a potential winner would be buying.<\/p>\n

\n\tStreaming and other royalties from Reasonable Doubt<\/em> would likely provide a buyer with a revenue stream; since its 1996 release, the album has racked up 2.2 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate, including 21,500 units so far this year. But the eventual buyer also would be a minority owner in a company controlled by hostile partners, with little ability to perform typical due diligence on the asset they\u2019re about to purchase.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother key question mark for buyers \u2013 and the source of this week\u2019s dispute with NYC \u2013 is just how long Roc-A-Fella will continue to own its only real asset.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe termination right, a provision created by congress in the 1970s, empowers authors to reclaim ownership of copyrighted works decades after selling them away. If Jay is eligible for it, termination would allow him to win back the rights to his sound recording of Reasonable Doubt<\/em> roughly 35 years after he released the album, meaning 2031.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in their court filing on Friday, attorneys for New York City child services said Jay-Z was not, in fact, eligible for termination. They argued that he had created the album as so-called \u201cwork for hire\u201d under a written contract with Roc-A-Fella \u2013 meaning the company had always been the legal owner of the copyright, and there were no rights to Jay to take back in the first place.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe has claimed that he has a termination right under the Copyright Act and that the rights to Reasonable Doubt<\/em> will revert to him in six years,\u201d wrote Singleton, the NYC attorney. \u201cIn fact, he has no such termination right and RAF is entitled to the renewal term [and] will own the copyright rights until the year 2098.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo address the problem, the city asked the judge to issue a definitive ruling on whether Jay-Z is eligible for termination \u2013 and to postpone the auction until he does so.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in his response Monday, Spiro argued that the city \u201chas no right to seek such a ruling.\u201d He said the demand was premature, since Jay-Z will not formally take back the album until 2031, and that a city agency had no legal standing to raise such questions in court.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPut simply, this is not the appropriate time, forum, or case to litigate any issues relating to Jay-Z\u2019s notice of termination,\u201d Spiro wrote. \u201cThis Court should therefore reject NYC\u2019s request for an impermissible advisory opinion as to the effectiveness of Jay-Z\u2019s notice of termination.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for Jay-Z are now sparring with lawyers for New York City over whether he can use copyright termination to retake control of his debut album Reasonable Doubt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2518,3547,3548],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-doubt","tag-jayz","tag-reasonable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}