Music Ally
2 Live Crew have prevailed in a legal battle over their right to regain ownership of their recordings catalogue. The group had been seeking to exercise their termination right under US law, but this led to a dispute with label Lil Joe Records, which acquired the catalogue in the mid-1990s after 2 Live Crew’s previous label went bankrupt.
This was the crux of the legal case: whether the termination right still applied for a catalogue that had been sold as part of a bankruptcy. A jury took 2 Live Crew’s side this week. “The verdict was a total and overwhelming victory for our clients and artists everywhere,” 2 Live Crew’s attorney Scott Alan Burroughs told Billboard.
However, Lil Joe Records is planning to appeal against the verdict, potentially right up to the US Supreme Court. “The bankruptcy code is clear that all assets of a bankrupt party are part of the bankruptcy estate. All means all,” said the label’s attorney Richard Wolfe.
