Tempo Music Investments LLC v. Cyrus

In copyright infringement action brought by assignee of co-ownership interest in Bruno Mars’ song “When I Was Your Man,” district court denies defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of standing, holding that plaintiff stepped into shoes of original co-owner and could sue for infringement without joining other co-owners or obtaining their consent.  

Plaintiff Tempo Music Investments LLC, a music investment company, purchased a co-ownership interest in Bruno Mars’ 2013 song “When I Was Your Man” from Philip Lawrence, a co-author of the song. Plaintiff brought copyright infringement claims against singer Miley Cyrus and the songwriters who co-authored Cyrus’ 2023 hit “Flowers,” as well as other defendants who allegedly publish, distribute or otherwise exploit the work, alleging that defendants infringed the copyright in “When I Was Your Man.”

The songwriter defendants moved to dismiss for lack of standing, arguing that plaintiff, as an assignee of one co-author’s interest in a joint work’s copyright, did not have standing to sue for infringement because plaintiff was not an owner of “exclusive rights” under Section 501(b) of the Copyright Act. More specifically, defendants argued that the original co-author, Lawrence, could not promise plaintiff rights that were “exclusive vis-à-vis the world” without the consent of all co-owners of “When I Was Your Man.” Because plaintiff did not acquire the interests of all co-authors, it was an assignee of nonexclusive rights with no standing to bring suit, defendants claimed.

The district court disagreed, reasoning that ownership of “exclusive rights” is not to be conflated with “exclusive ownership” of rights. The court clarified that for standing to sue, the Copyright Act requires an ownership interest in an exclusive right, not exclusive ownership of the copyright rights. Co-owners can unilaterally transfer their rights without the permission of other co-owners. Because Lawrence had transferred his entire ownership interest to plaintiff, his transferred interest was a co-ownership interest in the exclusive rights of the copyright. Plaintiff therefore stepped into Lawrence’s shoes and became a co-owner of the exclusive rights of the copyright and, as co-owner, “can sue for infringement without joining the other co-owners of the copyright,” the court stated.

The court also reasoned that if defendants’ position were adopted, such that a co-owner’s right to sue for infringement is lost upon transfer, then if all the original co-authors transferred their interest, the copyright in the work could never be enforced. This limitation, the court explained, “would diminish the value of jointly owned copyrights because buyers would be less interested in purchasing a copyright that they cannot enforce,” thereby disincentivizing co-authorship in works and “undermining Congress’s intent in expressly allowing for the divisibility and alienability of copyrights.”

Summary prepared by Frank D’Angelo and Jeff Prystowsky