This Detroit WXYZ Channel 7 Action News story, at the request of the defense attorneys of the
Tilmon case, has been quashed by the parent company of ABC,
Scribbs Broadcasting.
The issue here is not the pendency of litigation but the obligation of the U.S. Copyright Office.
In short, the U.S. Copyright Office is outdated and devoid of any enforcement authority outside administrative remedy of is Royalty Board. The beginning of 2013, a provision of the U.S. Copyright Law tolled, specifically the "work-for-hire" provision which allows musical professionals to reclaim their copyrights.
During what I call the "financially, hermetically sealed period" (FHSP: when the U.S. Copyright Act was made into law until 2013), the only entities who were capable of generating profit off the works of these entertainment professionals were the record publishing companies.
Before the FHSP then, an entertainment professional may have been "paid" a few hundred dollars to go into the studio to record. It was mutually understood that royalties would be paid in partnership with the recording companies, like a 50/50 agreement.
Somewhere down the line, the record companies transferred filings of ownership of copyrights to their names without authorization or notification of the entertainers. Unfortunately, the U.S. Copyright Office would approve the transfer claim without notifying the original owner of the copyright and without verifying the authenticity of the signature. In certain cases, the
U.S. Copyright Office approved posthumous signatures to authorize transfer of copyrights, some 10 years after the musician had died.
So the question is: "Why will not the U.S. Copyright Office do anything about it?"
Actually, it is. It has started to scan and upload some, and I mean some, of the original copyright filings pre-FHSP but that is about it due to constraints.
These constraints are quite simple. First is enforcement. The Copyright Office, unlike the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office located in the executive branch has no enforcement mechanism. What this means is the Copyright Office is the Library of Congress, literally. Copyrights are suppose to be used to obviate policy, or rather, help elected officials research solutions for future problems. Since there are questionable filings of copyrights, this means there are more than likely questionable laws and policies.
Basically, there are no copyright police. A musician who has been "royalty stripped" (revoked the grant of copyright when the U.S. Copyright Office was duped with fraudulent transfer of ownership filings) is economically stripped of his/her tools to secure financial stability. This is what happened to many of the old school Detroit musicians.
Quintessentially, a broke man cannot afford an attorney, let alone pay bills.
The second constraint is public education. Intellectual property is defined by the fact that it possesses a federal marking. To obtain a federal marking, an individual, including corporations, pays a fee to be granted the constitutional protection to engage in commerce. The purpose of securing federal approval of the intellectual property is to be able to do business, make a profit and pay taxes. Those taxes are in turn used to fund the Copyright and Patent and Trademark Offices to process and protect filings of intellectual property. The federal "stamp of approval" to do business with the tools that individual has created comes in the form of © or ™ or SM (superscript) or ® or the Patent symbol (P in a circle) or Patent Pending.
If the product does not possess the federal marking, then it is not intellectual property.
Think of a copyright as the grant for custody of your baby. Someone goes to the court and is granted custody of your child based upon false filings. Your child has been
Legally Kidnapped. What would you do?
How would you feel if you paid someone to protect you and you ended up getting sold down the river.
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| George Clinton |
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) - Have you ever created something valuable, and when you went to collect, a good friend took all the money that was owed you? That is what lots of people are saying happened to them and millions of dollars are at stake.
7 Action News Investigator Bill Proctor exposes a Southfield music producer who is accused of taking royalties from local artists and their families.
The man at the center of this controversy is Southfield businessman Armen Boladian, who owns Bridgeport Music. Is he the king of a royalty rip-off? Some local musicians and their relatives say yes.
Oakland County grandmother Janyce Tilmon-Jones says that she should be worth millions thanks to her late husband, Abrim Tilmon. He was a singer and producer of popular music in the 70’s. But Tilmon-Jones and her children say the money that should have supported a better life for their family ended up in the pockets of a man they thought was a good friend.
Tilmon-Jones’ story is an inside look at what many consider to be the ugly, unknown side of the music business. She has gone to federal court to show how Boladian allegedly has been secretive and unfair with people who trusted him.
For years Boladian’s music publishing business Bridgeport Music has been operating from a nondescript office building on 10 Mile Road in Southfield—and it has been raking in millions of dollars. Boladian, who is now 78-years-old and lives in West Bloomfield, is the sole owner Bridgeport Music.
But Tilmon-Jones and others say that Boladian’s companies, including Bridgeport Music, have been raking in music royalties they say belong to them. In court, Tilmon-Jones has won legal settlements, but lost a battle for more damages. But she is still fighting and says her fight is worth waging for her family, and many others.
“Feel the Need in Me” by the Detroit Emeralds was written by Tilmon-Jones’s late husband, singer Abrim Tilmon. The 70’s hit was a big score in a lifetime dream of making music for a living, she says. The money from it was icing on the cake, but there was a catch.
“I trusted the record company,” says Tilmon-Jones. “I trusted the president Armen Boladian, so much so that when my late husband and I were looking for housing, he went around with us.”
Abrim Tilmon and his “Detroit Emeralds” did well back then. But another Detroit-area music producer, who also accuses Boladian of not paying him music royalties, became a legend:
George Clinton, also know as “Mr. Funkadelic.”
Clinton produced songs that influenced music around the world and he also considered Boladian to be his friend, and much more.
Clinton told 7 Action News recently, “Yeah, I was partners with him…it was supposed to be fifty-fifty.”
Clinton says that was more than three decades ago, but more on Clinton in a moment.
The Tilmon family story was all about music success until Abrim died in 1982. Tilmon-Jones thought the royalties they were getting--between $20,000 and $40,000 a year -- and her rights to her husband’s songs ended with her husband’s death. But she says decades later she discovered that the publisher Bridgeport Music was keeping royalty money she says belongs to her and her children.
“I didn’t know the laws of the land, that if someone dies within the first 28 years of the copyright, even if they sold their original works, it reverts back to the heirs,” says Tilmon-Jones. “Even if they sold it, it goes back to the heirs.”
With a sad look, Tilmon-Jones adds, “I don’t mind being used, but I refuse to be misused, and this record company has misused my family, and that upsets me.”
She says that Boladian came to her husband’s funeral, but never told her about the copy right law that made her the owner of her husband’s songs and that she should have been paid for his work.
“I’m not angry, but I’m hurt,” she says. “I’m hurt for my children.”
She shows photos of her daughter’s wedding and tears up, saying, “My daughter had a wedding with 35 people in attendance cause that’s all we could afford.”
Clinton makes similar allegations and he and Tilmon-Jones have both gone to court in an on-going legal battle with Boladian over royalties and ownership.
Tilmon-Jones sued Bridgeport Music in 2007, hoping Boladian would provide documents that would state clearly what royalties had been paid on her husband’s work. She says that Boladian resisted, providing the court with documents that did not provide a clear picture of what Bridgeport had received from BMI and other companies that track and pay royalties.
Without access to all the records to support her case, Tilmon-Jones settled for an undisclosed sum. She went back to court four years later with newly discovered inside information in 2011. At the time, she was hoping the judge would hear what she felt Boladian had withheld from the previous settlement. But US District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara denied her request and sanctioned her attorney.
Tilmon-Jones still believes, however, that the law and new evidence are on her side. Her claims against Boladian are duplicated by hundreds of other people who also believe royalty money was not turned over by Boladian.
7 Action News caught up with Boladian at a gospel music story in Detroit, where he was showing a clerk how to display new releases.
“I have a list of 200 people who seem to think that you’ve held on to royalty money that actually belongs to them,” Bill Proctor asks Boladian.
”Not true,” Boladian says. “200 people?”
“At least 200,” Proctor continues.
An attorney, who works in the music industry, provided 7 Action News with a list of more than 200 names of artists, or their surviving relatives, who say that
in just 2007 alone Boladian should have paid them more than $4.7 million in royalties. Clinton is on that list.
“Have you ever been able to settle with the people who say you owe them money?” Proctor asks Boladian.
“Well, we’ve settled on some things,” he answers. “But we pay our royalties regularly to those who have money coming.”
That statement is at the heart of the issue: Who really knows for certain what Boladian may owe. There are decades of financial records that he has refused to reveal to the people who have asked for royalty reports and other documents. They feel they have the right to know.
When Kid Rock took the half-time stage at Ford Field last Thanksgiving Day, Clinton was there with him wearing a shirt that read “Flashlight 2013.” That is the symbol of Clinton’s decades-long battle with Boladian.
Long after their first release, many of Clinton's songs took on a new life decades later in the hip-hop music world. Rappers took beats or “samples” of Clinton’s songs and made new recordings.
“My songs made babies,” says Clinton. “Each one of my songs--Atomic Dog would have three- or four-hundred songs made from it alone.”
He may be right. The “Atomic Dog” line ‘bow-wow-yippie- yo- yippi-yay’ has been used in commercials, movies, and more hip-hop songs than music experts can count. Hip-hop artists like Dr. Dre, Snoop, and dozens of others used Atomic Dog for popular hip hop sounds.
Clinton believes the money from his work went to Boladian instead of Clinton, his relatives, and fellow artists who helped produce it.
“They look to me because that was my publishing company,” Clinton says. “Not only my family, my immediate family, but the band members.”
Clinton shakes his head as he continues, “I ain’t crying because I lived my life, did what I did, but it’s still mine. I still wrote what I wrote, and I’m going to fight for that.”
The ownership and copyright dispute between Clinton and Boladian still rages in federal court. Meanwhile Tilmon-Jones is also challenging the court’s decision not to reopen her case. And 7 Action News also wants to know the whole story here.
We filed suit, along with the New York Times, to unseal the case in hopes of learning more about who is owed what.
Internet gossip has it Judge O'Meara is kinda chummy with defendants. That is why he fined the plaintiff attorney $350,000.
Bill Proctor has assured me that there will be follow up.
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