Over the course of more than 60 years, Pryor Cashman has built a music litigation team with extraordinary depth coupled with decades of experience in handling the cutting-edge issues in the music business. Pryor Cashman’s unparalleled reputation and success has made us the firm to go to for music publishers, record labels, songwriters and recording artists.
Our award-winning music litigation attorneys protect and defend the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property, routinely winning multi-million dollar copyright infringement lawsuits for international pop stars, rock icons, music publishers and record companies, as well as litigating breach of contract actions, royalty disputes, copyright termination claims, and other music-based disputes.
Our clients include virtually all of the major music publishers and recording companies, including EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Universal Music Publishing Group, Universal Music Group, BMG Rights Management, Kobalt Music Publishing, ABKCO Music and Records, Kontor New Media, Merlin, peermusic, Theory Entertainment, the National Music Publishers' Association (“NMPA”), the Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA"), the Nashville Songwriters Association International ("NSAI"), and many others. Our individual songwriter and recording artists have included a who’s-who of chart-topping talent, including Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Jay-Z, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, Mariah Carey, Mark Ronson, and Ariana Grande, just to name a few.
We recently represented the NMPA, the largest trade association for the music publishing industry in the U.S., and the NSAI, the world’s largest nonprofit trade organization for songwriters, in the Phonorecords III proceeding before the Copyright Royalty Board (“CRB”) to set the nationwide rates for the compulsory mechanical license for the years 2018-2022. Our litigators obtained a landmark increase in the royalty rates payable by digital music services including Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Pandora, and have garnered numerous accolades from organizations such as Variety, Billboard, Chambers, Legal 500, and scores of others for our ground-breaking work to shift the dynamics of the industry at large.
Our litigators have won groundbreaking cases involving some of the most hotly-contested issues in the music industry, establishing Copyright Act standards and shaping the boundaries governing new technology and digital media. In Capitol Records et al. v. MP3tunes LLC - one of the first large-scale digital copyright cases tried to a jury - we secured an influential victory (and one of the largest infringement damage verdicts this century) for EMI Music Publishing in the first case in which an Internet service provider was denied safe harbor protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) due to willful blindness. We successfully represented a major record company in an infringement action against the music sharing site Grooveshark, and were able to defeat Grooveshark’s DMCA-based defense in an 80-page decision - the first to deny the safe harbor for failure to establish and comply with a meaningful repeat infringer policy. We engaged in pivotal cases seeking to permit music publishers and songwriters to withdraw certain digital performing rights from the performance rights organizations ("PROs") (BMI v. Pandora; Pandora v. ASCAP), and then opposing the United States Department of Justice with respect to its pursuit of a 100% licensing right for the PROs (a right rejected by the Courts). Our attorneys also played a key role in other landmark peer-to-peer file-sharing cases (Napster, Aimster, Grokster, Limewire and MP3.com), as well as the first case to enforce the anti-circumvention provisions of the Copyright Act (Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes).
In addition to litigation, we proactively advise our clients on strategies to avoid litigation and minimize risk. Both independently and in support of our music transaction and intellectual property teams, we routinely review agreements involving musical composition or sound recording rights or catalogs, assess their value, and identify potential issues to help clients make the most of their creative assets.
A Sampling of Other Representative Music Litigation Matters
Griffin v. Sheeran and Structured Asset Sales v. Sheeran (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York): Representing Ed Sheeran, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Atlantic Records and others in three ongoing copyright infringement lawsuits concerning Sheeran’s #1 hit single, “Thinking Out Loud,” which plaintiffs claim infringes Ed Townsend’s and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”
Lastrada Entertainment v. Ronson et. al (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York): Successfully represented Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, Phil Lawrence and Jeff Bhasker, as well as the music publishers and record label for the smash hit “Uptown Funk,” in three different lawsuits in three different jurisdictions, which involved highly current issues regarding what is and what is not protectable in modern music and whether a particular “style” or genre of music is protectable.
Marshall v. Huffman (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California): Represented Mariah Carey in a copyright infringement suit based on the song “My Love” by The Dream.
TufAmerica, Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc. (N.Y. Supreme Court): Successfully obtained dismissal (on appeal to the Appellate Division, First Department) of all claims against UMG asserted in connection with the sound recording “Let Me Clear My Throat,” performed by the artist DJ Kool.
Enclosed Music LLC v. Steinman (U.S. District Court for the Central District of California): Represented hall of fame songwriter Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf, and Carlin America, Inc. in a copyright infringement suit concerning the song “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).”
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons d/b/a Seasons Four Music Corp. v. EMI Music Publishing Limited (U.S. District Court for the Central District of Florida): Secured a dismissal without prejudice in a breach of contract suit that claimed that the U.K.-based company held the rights to their music “hostage” after being sent letters terminating their rights agreements in 2016 and 2017.
Capitol Records v. Defries (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York): Obtained a $9.4 million judgment for willful copyright infringement on behalf of clients Capitol Records, LLC, Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc., Colgems-EMI Music, Inc., EMI Full Keel Music, Inc., EMI Unart Catalog Inc. and Jones/Tintoretto Entertainment Company, Inc. against Anthony Defries, the former manager of David Bowie, and his related entities. The case involved infringement of classic recordings and songs by David Bowie, Iggy Pop and John Mellencamp.
Hobbs v. John (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois): Successfully defended Elton John and Bernie Taupin against a music copyright infringement claim based on the highly successful song, Nikita, written by John and Taupin and recorded by Elton John; we obtained complete dismissal of all claims on motion to dismiss.
Maxwood Music Ltd. v. Malakian (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of N.Y.): After a seven-day bench trial, we obtained a complete dismissal of the co-authorship claims brought against client songwriters Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian, two members of the band System of a Down, based on a Grammy award-winning song.
