Top Defense Verdict: ABS Entertainment Inc. v. CBS Corp.

CBS Corp. successfully fought off a nine-figure class action that alleged it had to pay for playing remastered songs recorded before 1972 over terrestrial radio.

ABS Entertainment Inc., Barnaby Records Inc., and the Brunswick Record Corp., which own recordings by Al Green, the Everly Brothers and The Chi-Lites sued CBS for playing songs the companies claimed fell under a patchwork of state law.

But CBS argued that the recordings underwent such significant changes in the remastering process, it created new original works that fell under a federal copyright act law that permits post-1972 recordings to be played without paying additional fees.

"We didn't sit and play vinyl records, we played CDs that didn't come into existence until the late 1980s," said Victor H. Jih of Irell & Manella LLP that represented CBS. "These aren't pre-1972 recordings; they're post-1972 recordings, they're digital recordings and are governed under federal copyright law."

The plaintiffs, however, argued that the remastered versions were simple conversions, which were not covered by federal law.

VICTOR JIH

But Judge Percy Anderson sided with CBS, saying the record labels didn't offer sufficient evidence to back their claim and cited testimony from music engineer William Inglot, who worked on 46 of the remastered songs.

"Whenever Mr. Inglot remastered a work, he made changes such as 'adjusting the bass, treble, midrange and other frequencies on the equalizer to emphasize and deemphasize certain instruments and vocal sections ... he 'never made a simple mechanical transfer of the original master to the new master, with no alterations to the sound recording," the judge wrote.

— Arin Mikailian