The 1976 Copyright Act; The three-year statute of limitations (17 USC § 507(b)); Claim accrual; “Plain and express repudiation”; Everly v Everly; Remaining issues of fact as to co-ownership & co-authorship of recordings

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court reversed summary judgment for defendants-Thang and Clinton in this copyright case, holding that material disputes remain as to whether the statute of limitations barred plaintiff-Estate’s co-ownership and co-authorship claims over its decedent’s (Worrell) recordings with the funk group Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk). Worrell and Clinton were members of P-Funk. Their relationship became acrimonious, with allegations of failure to pay royalties and violation of agreements. After Worrell died in 2016, his Estate unsuccessfully sued Thang (Clinton’s company) in New York state court for contract breach involving a 1976 Agreement. “Thang successfully defended on the ground that Worrell lacked a countersigned copy of” that agreement. In 2022, the Estate sued Thang and Clinton in federal court, “seeking a declaration of its joint ownership of recordings Worrell created with P-Funk and, in turn, an accounting of royalties due.” The district court granted Thang and Clinton summary judgment based on the statute of limitations. On appeal, the court noted the 1976 Agreement’s invalidity was now res judicata—this case was a copyright matter with a three-year limitation period. Under the Copyright Act, an ownership claim accrues “whenever there is a ‘plain and express repudiation’ of ownership by one party as against the other.” The Estate argued that Worrell had relied on the Agreement instead of copyright law, so his “ownership rights under copyright law were not plainly and expressly repudiated until 2020 when Thang and Clinton denied the Agreement’s validity, at which point the copyright-ownership claims accrued.” The court held that there were genuine disputes of material fact precluding judgment as a matter of law. “Thang and Clinton arguably acted for years as though their nonpayment of royalties to Worrell was a problem under the terms of the 1976 Agreement, not a repudiation of Worrell’s status as a co-author and co-owner of the works produced in a period covered by the purported agreement.” The court held that whether the statute of limitations applied to songs that fell under “the 1976 Agreement and whether Worrell was a co-author and co-owner of those songs” were issues for a factfinder. Reversed and remanded.