Court win for Village People's Victor Willis

VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY: In the latest battle between the music biz and songwriters over termination rights, a judge has dismissed a suit by pubcos Scorpio Music and Can’t Stop Productions aimed at preventing former Village People frontman Victor Willis from exercising his right to reclaim ownership of “YMCA” and 32 other songs recorded by the group. The termination rights provision of copyright law gives artists writers the ability to reacquire and administer their work themselves after 35 years have elapsed. In their suit, the publishers initially argued that Willis had merely created “works for hire” while an employee of the company that managed the group. They subsequently dropped that claim, arguing instead that Willis had no legal standing to take that or any other action because he had “no right, title or interest in the copyright” to the songs, while also claiming he couldn’t reclaim his share of the song because a majority of the other copyright holders hadn’t agreed. But on Monday, Chief Judge Barry T. Moskowitz of Federal District Court in L.A. rejected the pubcos’ claims, writing: “The purpose of the act was to ‘safeguard authors against unremunerative transfers’ and address ‘the unequal bargaining position of authors, resulting in part from the impossibility of determining a work’s value until it has been exploited. Under plaintiffs’ interpretation, it would be more difficult to terminate an individual grant than it would be to make it in the first place.” (5/9a)