Here we will analyze the actions of one court the Puerto Rico Federal District Court, and one judge, José A. Fusté. Mr. Fusté clearly de-facto exonerated two companies that committed theft or fraud or deceit in a grand scale, directly or through hired gun employees.

One of the exonerated companies, Peermusic, precisely alleging that they were exonerated by Judge Fusté, claim that they prevailed in court and deserve that Plaintiffs, the children of the composer, pay them an alleged expense of $1,000,000 in lawyer fees.

Defendant companies that always allege that the work for the benefit of composers when in reality are nothing more than companies dedicated to the taking away songs from composers and their heirs for their own and only benefit and who in the end justify their wrong and immoral actions through the use of legal technicalities, misleading information, hiding information and much perjury. The actions of the judge are a direct support of copyright tyranny and infringement. We will see how over 700 songs were stolen from the owners and exploited by the thief for over 6 years years and the victims were awarded no damages other than the return of $16,000 (without any legal expenses) paid by someone other than the thief infringer. Net payment by the infringer is zero dollars. The law sets a minimum of $700 per infringed song and double ($1,400) that when the infringement is intentional. A clear violation of the law by the judge, particularly when it is considered that theft and passing oneself as owner is infinitely more and severely damaging than the mere using of a song. On a different case, the same court awarded damages of $7.5 million dollars for the mere use of a song, as if some have more pull on the court than others. On a recent case, a federal district court judge ordered in Baltimore-based Legg Mason to pay $19.7 million for infringing on the copyright of a financial newsletter publisher. Legg Mason had decided that to reduce subscription costs, it distributed the newsletter internally through faxes and the computer network for about five years. The action by Legg Mason was not nealy as damaging as the actions against the GVL heirs, whose property was in fact stolen for many years and copyright registered. 

Equity, or equal treatment of all in court, has been thrown out the door by this judge. While in the same court, for a "using" one song infringement victim was awarded over 7 million dollars, the victims of massive theft of songs and/or earned royalties by two music publishers were simply given a slap in the wrist "punishment" of a $5,000 and $16,000, respectively. We should note that as of May, 2006, two years after the $16,000 sentence was issued, the so called LAMCO parties (ACEMLA, LAMCO, Luis Raul Bernard, Lucy Chavez, Jose A. Lacomba),  have not paid the judgment and without submitting any evidence has claimed to the court that they are unable to pay. This in spite of the fact that they individually and collectively can easily raise the pittance award of $16,000. They, the LAMCO parties, have obviously lied to Judge Fuste because they know that they can do it.
 

     In the annals of music and copyright history, this writer knows of no case where such a monumental  and, may I add, crude scheme of  fraud, deceit and theft as in the case we will be discussing:

By Peermusic executives named Alberto Salinas and Ángel Fonfrias many years ago. See this letter, where Mr. Salinas tells Mr. Fonfrias to get 16 songs "without the author suspecting". Plain theft.
By ACEMLA-LAMCO parties, who stole many songs and even copyright registered so as to fraudulently pass themselves as the owners. ACEMLA-LAMCO even has the tenacity of arguing that the local Puerto Rico courts had not decided that the children of Guillermo Venegas owned his songs when in fact that is what the courts had decided. 
     ACEMLA-LAMCO had the further tenacity of claiming the ownership of 10 songs based on a fictitious assignment by Guillermo Venegas (this document was the so called proof). See note. No sanction was given by Judge Fuste to ACEMLA-LAMCO and their attorney (Angel Caro) for their tenacity of plainly lying to the court. Plainly registering songs at the copyright office is a criminal offense (Section 506(e):False representation) and said offense went unnoticed (really?) by the judge. Additionally, other criminal offences have been comitted by ACEMLA-LAMCO under Puerto Rico law, such as the appropiation of intellectual property. This also went unnoticed, evidently, by the judge.

Note: In 1999, a criminal complaint was filed against ACEMLA-LAMCO parties for the appropiation of the music. The complaint is currently (Jan. 2006) under investigation by the Puerto Rico Justice Department.

Note: The 10 songs that ACEMLA-LAMCO were not copyrighted by ACEMLA-LAMCO after the alleged assignment was made, nor royalties were ever reported or paid to any heir, further proof of the lie to the judge, who was apparently not interested in the details of a fraud by the party he favored.
The SCAM (fraud). By Peermusic executives who have totally violated the songwriter contracts that may have assigned songs to Peermusic. These executive never put the music to make money for the composer or the plaintiffs who did not get a single cent from Peermusic in over 10 years since the death of their composer father. No a single song assigned to Peermusic has ever been recorded as a result of a Peermusic promotion or license. Peermusic tells composers that it will try to make every song a hit (no kidding) but Peermusic does not even have the musical scores for many GVL songs, so it is in reality impossible to get a recording made. No one records "phantom" songs. Peermusic operation is nothing more than a scam to get song from composers so that Peermusic winds up with a huge catalog of songs so that if a composer promotes the songs Peermusic collects the royalties and for the purpose of extracting money from the performance licensing societies. The judge did not get it.

Then the final deceit and theft ocurred in the court in front of the judge, who doe not even mention or even hint that any theft or fraud or scam ocurred in his 77 page decision, one that makes the thieves the winners and the publisher mistreated victims the loosers.

For these reasons alone this case in of utmost importance and interest, particularly for composer, artists, copyright holders and anyone interested in copyright law. 

     When the composer is one of the great ones, Guillermo Venegas Lloveras (GVL), the case is the more interesting and important. All of this makes a very revealing story how the justice system works, or better yet, doesn't work in Puerto Rico, in federal court.

     Here we will analyze just one part, a judge's opinion, of the saga of the children of Guillermo Venegas to save the music of their father. The opinion is of a judge that is the president of the Federal Court, district of Puerto Rico, José A. Fusté.

     Up to this point the federal court in Puerto Rico is seen by some as a place of justice, where the justice not available in the corrupt Puerto Rico court system is not available. Others, still, see the federal court as as a place of oppression.

     In our particular case, the court has acted as a place of oppression on a grand scale. 

     So far there is only a low court opinion. Should this opinion be allowed to substantially prevail, that is the death of Puerto Rico music, composers and artists, because most will simply not fight the "system".. it is too costly and reason means nothing.

    The struggle against the the legal system, particularly the courts, cannot be won if it is is thoroughly against the artists and composer, who do not have the money to buy their way through as do others. For this reason the opinion analyzed here  cannot be allowed to prevail.

     The children of Guillermo Venegas have never done anything unethical, illegal, wrong or unreasonable related to the music of Guillermo Venegas. To save and protect this music, in 10 years of struggle against the estate executor (who stole every song), ACEMLA, who received the stolen property from the estate executor, and Peermusic, who stole additional songs (in Peer's own words. "without the author suspecting"),  the children have spent over 10,000 hours, over $225,000 in legal fees and all that they have obtained from this is a future payment from this José A. Fusté judgment of $21,000. Also lost has been 10 years of their lives since they have not been able to promote the music due or to make a single cent from it due to the intervention of the publishers that have done much that is unethical, illegal, wrong, unreasonable and criminal and whom Jose A. Fusté has richly rewarded in his opinion.

     Recently the same judge wrote in a column he writes for a Puerto Rico newspaper "Because of that under our judicial system in the majority of cases we are under the obligation to decide based on the constitution and not necessarily per state or federal laws." Clearly the purpose of the constitution regarding copyrights is to promote the creation of works of art, which in the case of music is created by composers, not music publishers. Clearly the creation of works music cannot be promoted if composers are more protected from the actual use of music than to the theft of music by thief publishers, performance and mechanical licensing organizations or are not protected at all and the publisher thieves are thoroughly protected. Clearly if a composer thinks about what Fusté decided, he may decide it is not worth the effort  to create music if after the music is infringed criminally he or she has to prove actual use, which is very difficult or impossible in most instances while the theft of ownership, a simple thing to prove is of no value. That is precisely what Fusté has decided, proven theft means nothing, but because the actual performance (which obviously occurred) were not proven, the thief publisher comes out winning. So bad was Jose A. Fuste's opinion that we must laugh a little. Read this: The Incredible Dissapearing Song - Believe It or Not.

Tite Curet Alonso
Mr. Curet, now deceased, said to be the father of Salsa music wrote many very successful songs. Sometime in about the late 1990's Mr. Curet signed a songwriter contract with ACEMLA. Thereafter his music is not heard on the radio. Radio stations do not want a performance license from ACEMLA allegedly because ACEMLA has sued many radio stations or charges too much or whatever. Since radio stations stopped playing the music of Mr. Curet, his music was not of any interest to record companies, who need that records be performed on radio for records to sell well. This is what the singer Ruben Blades said to explain the failure of his project for a record of Mr. Curet's work.  As result ACEMLA, it is believed, is not getting any income from the music of Mr. Curet. At the same time Peermusic claims ownership of many of Mr. Curet's song. The conflicting ownership claims makes the songs of Mr. Curet even less appealing to record producers, so that the sale of records almost has dried up. The Venegas music has been a victim just like the music of Mr. Curet of similar circumstances. That makes a situation where the income received by the publishers is extremely low. Per Judge Fusté, the damage awards were calculated based on income by the publishers. At no time dis the judge consider the actual damages sufferd by the victims, a clear omission of duty, since it was required that he award actual damages if they were higher than the statutory damages, which he apparently (a guess here because the judge, in his careleness did not specify if his award was of statutory or actual damages). Clearly a failed logic that favors the music publishers who raped the composers and the heirs, since the losses of the composers or the heirs are mainly the income that was not made because of the actions (or breach of contract) by the publishers and not the low income, which could be none, of the publishers. As it is, if it had turned out that the publishers had not earned any money, the Venegas heirs would have obtained nothing from this case even though the action of the publishers have driven them to de-facto bankrupcy and have prevented ther exploitation of the music the Venegas's own. The readers are urged to think about this strange behavior by the judge.

Then there is the....
THE MYSTERY OF THE ARDILA LULLE DAMAGE AWARD OF $1.6MILLION

     No wonder music piracy is rampant and composers and their heirs are raped. See our PIRACY PAGE.

     That is my opinion. You be the judge.

The Analyst

After the trial

Additional stolen songs:

After the trial the theft of additional songs by Peermusic has been discovered or realized:

Borre tu amor  (purchased 3-06 at Walgreens)
Mi Cabaña
Llega la noche buena
Como es la vida
Somos diferente
Quiero vivir en Puerto Rico

These songs are in the Peermusic catalog. Peermusic did not present during the litigation any document to show how they acquired the songs. Llega la noche buena is credited by Peermusic has having been composed by Edmundo Disdier. Disdier is paid royalties for the song. The GVL heirs are currently trying again to get Peermusic's explanation as to how Peermusic acquired these songs, as was tried before the lawsuit without any response. How Peermusic will respond is not known bacause of their position that the heirs of GVL have no right to information as explained elsewhere.

Copyright Law: Violations are felonies

Because Peermusic has followed a pattern of hiding documents (before and during the trial) it is expected that additional findings will be made.

A news story of January 19,2005:
William xxxxxxxxxx, and Michael xxxxxxxxxxx, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit felony criminal copyright infringement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. These face up to 5 years in jail and $250,000 in fines. Sentencing will be on April 29th 2005.

On February 26, 2006 these facts were published by the US Justice Department about another case of  conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Interesting: Why were the conspiracies to steal the music of GVL not seen (or referred to the FBI) by Judge Fusté? Is crime law applied to some and not to others?

Appeal:
Appeal has been made by Plaintiffs and Defendants.

Arguments were made through written brief on 12-4-04:
12-22-04 Plaintiffs Appeal Brief (Acrobat file)

On 5-5-05 an oral hearing was held at boston

An interesting message from ACEMLA-LAMCO
On September 23, 2005 Mr. Jose Bernard, of  ACEMLA-LAMCO, published a Press Release, in Spanish. In it, it is stated (translated here):

"The appeals Court validated the arguments of LAMCO and ACEMLA against the previous district (court) decision awarding a 20 percent to the widows...".

This is significant as follows:

a. LAMCO and ACEMLA had no right to meddle in the widows claims or make claims for her, so as to save their skin after stealing the music of Guillermo Venegas.
b. The award of 20% or 50% is only for 8 songs, which we estimate to be about 1 percent of the musical production of Guillermo Venegas. Here ACEMLA-LAMCO leads readers to believe that Chavez owns or owned a 50 percent share of all the music, when in fact the most she (not ACEMLA-LAMCO) can claim is a useless share in 8 songs.... useless because a partial license to use the songs may be illegal (says Harry Fox, the primary licensor of music for recordings in the USA ).
b. The message fails to say that the awarding of rights to Chavez means a reversal of what the Puerto Rico Supreme court had already decided (that Chavez had no rights whatsoever) and that the court's decision is a violation of res judicata (already judged and decided) and of jurisdiction, as only the US Supreme court can reverse a Puerto Rico Supreme court decision.

The interference of ACEMLA-LAMCO in the affairs of the inheritance of Guillermo Venegas continues. Now (2008) an (former) ACEMLA-LAMCO lawyer (Attorney Willma Cadilla) represents the widow Chavez (who claims to be the executrix of the estate) in the lawsuit against her to force her to complete the distribution of the inheritance, after 13 years after the death of the songwriter. One of the main mysteries in the entire case of the inheritance of Guillermo Venegas and the infringement and theft of the copyrights of the heirs is why several lawyers and five or more judges  in the state and federal courts have allowed the conflict-of-interest legal intermingled and utterly confusing representations of Chavez and ACEMLA-LAMCO by the same lawyers. No wonder widow and executrix Lucy Chavez has not sued ACEMLA-LAMCO for inducing her into appropiating subtantial parts (including all the music) of the inheritance of Guillermo Venegas,,, she is "defended" by  ACEMLA-LAMCO lawyers.

Judge José A. Fusté Opinion of May 19, 2004 (PDF)
in Venegas vs. Peermusic case Civil No. 01-1215 (JAF)

Plaintiffs:
GVL Inc. and children of Guillermo Venegas Lloveras (GVL)
Represented by Attorneys Heath W. Hoglund Kramer and Samuel Pamias Portalatin.

Defendant:
Peermusic (Peer) - A music publisher
Represented by Attorneys Francisco A. Besosa and Barry I. Slotnick.
Note: On May, 2005, President George Bush nominated Mr. Besosa, a former lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department and member of several important District Court of Puerto Rico comitees, for the position of Federal Judge, for the District Court of Puerto Rico.

On October 2, 2006 Francisco Besosa was sworn as a federal judges in the scandal ridden court currently led by chief judge José A. Fusté, who said to the press: "Frank es sólido. Es una persona sólida" (Frank is solid, a solid person). "Frank" is the way Francisco Besosa is called by his friends.

Defendants (LAMCO parties):
ACEMLA - A performance rights organization
Represented by Attorney Angel Caro.
LAMCO - A music publisher
Represented by Attorney Angel Caro.
Luis Raul Bernard - Owner-Presidentt of ACEMLA-LAMCO
Represented by Attorney Angel Caro.
Lucy Chavez Butler: GVL estate-executor (who gave the music she did not own to ACEMLA-LAMCO)
Jose A. Lacomba - An ACEMLA employee and his husband of Lucy Chavez Butler
Also are represented by the same attorney, Attorney Angel Caro.

Also, see the following errors.

Peermusic stated during trial that plaintiffs, the heirs of the composer, had no right to get information or replies from Peermusic (except as a favor). But Peermusic alleges it had a contractual relation with GVL as publisher of his music. Plaintiffs are the successors of GVL, so plaintiffs have a contract with Peermusic, if Fusté's theories that Peermusic owns GVL songs are right. Clearly a contractor cannot have a relation with a counterpart if it is not willing to answer question or answer the mail of of the counterpart and whatever contract exists cannot be enforced by the "silent" party, the one that refuses to give information or answer letters or even pay royalties. Fusté says that a contract is still in place because of a whacky and wrong interpretation of statute of limitations (time available for complaining).  From Fusté's opinion, we must conclude that Fusté supports contract tyranny. Fusté does not mention this in his decision at all.

2. ACEMLA-LAMCO stole GVL songs though the use of GVL's widow in a tyrannical manner. For many years this music publisher has prevented the owners (plaintiffs) from exploiting any GVL songs because in the music industry it is beleived that the owners are ACEMLA. ACEMLA has has even copyright registered many songs it had no right over. Fusté has appears to support ACEMLA-LAMCO by only imposing the absurd  damage award of having to return $16,000 (paid by someone else, not the infringer who in the end pays nothing). In essence nothing comes out of the ACEMLA-LAMCO pocket. The message from Judge Fusté: You can steal, since there is nothing to loose. Fusté does not mention this in his decision at all.

Plaintiffs legal expenses not recouped:
Here we should note that the legal fees that plaintiffs requested be paid by LAMCO parties was $76,932. That is the cost of litigating this case against LAMCO parties, to only recuperate a $16,000 award, which is the money paid to LAMCO parties by another victim of said LAMCO parties. Plaintiff sued LAMCO parties because they stole all their 500+ songs and the result is a net loss of $63,932 ($76,932 - $16,000). The judge refused to order the payment of the $76,932 in legal fees to plaintiff on the ground that the claim was made too late. What a riot!!!

Copyright Law: Violations are felonies
This was ignored by the Judge.

Analyst comment:
None.

SEE DECEIT AND PLAYING BY PEERMUSIC WITH HEIRS

1997: PEERMUSIC  ASK VENEGAS HEIRS FOR ASSIGNMENT OF SONGS

Analyst comment:
The logic is simple: Only owners of a song can assign the rights to others to administer. Peer, when pressed by plaintiffs before assignment request to show how it acquired the GVL songs, was unable to show any proof other than a document without any song name, an unacceptable proof.

In effect, in 1997, an implicit agreement was reached between Peermusic and the heirs: The songs rights belonged to the heirs, regardless of what ocurred before that moment.

A Peermusic executive admitted that Peermusic could not do any business with GVL songs after 1997 because plaintiffs rejected that assignment request made by Peermusic.

Ownership Interruption
Note about the Peermusic offer to plaintiffs and Puerto Rico law:
Puerto Rico statute of limitations law (Art. 1848 Reconocimiento interrumpe la posesión. 31 L.P.R.A. sec. 5269) , it is stated that ownership of property is interrupted though an express or tacit acknowledgment that the owner makes (to another), as Peermusic did in 1997 when it requested assignments from plaintiffs. Surely a tacit acknowledgment that plaintiffs were the owners... thus the Peermusic possession (ownership), if it had been valid prior to 1997, was interrupted. New York statute of limitation law say that the Puerto Rico statute of limitations law applies.

See: Additional stolen songs. 

Analyst comment:
Constitutional rights are being violated here: By decreeing that Borracho Sentimental and other songs for which no proof was tendered that GVL wrote, Fusté may be violating the constitutional rights (taking of property) of the real, yet unidentified owner.

Note: Fusté awarded the song Borracho Sentimental to Peermusic without due process for the real owner.

A cynical joke: During the trial Peermusic's lawyer Barry Slotnick criticized and ridiculed plaintiffs Venegas (so as to influence the already biased judge?) for not removing a copyright registration after learning that Guillermo Venegas did not compose the song Borracho Sentimental. Plaintiffs had never registered the song. Additionlly, had plaintiffs registered the song Borracho sentimental it would have been because Peermusic, the thief of the song, had led plaintiffs to beleive that the song had been composed by GVL, through fake documentation! What a Joke!

Another cynical joke (or lawyer perjury?): During the trial Peermusic's lawyer Slotnick claimed that GVL songs made no money because the songs were no liked by the public. He forgot the minor detail that no song that was ever allegedly assigned to Peer by GVL was ever licensed to be recorded by Peermusic. Surely if no recordings are made, the non existent recording will not be liked. Surely Slotnick never heard the recordings that he said were not liked but that actually did not exist. 

See this letter from Rafael Venegas

Analyst comments:
1. The moral rights to all GVL songs and to the name GVL belong to plaintiffs as decreed by Puerto Rico law, regardless of who owns the copyrights.
2. If GVL gave Peermusic the scores or a recording and Peermusic destroyed them or lost them, the songs may then be lost forever and plaintiffs will never benefir from those songs and that constitutes great damages, morally and economically.The question is then, what is the value of those damages and is Peermusic responsible for the loss and the damages? Strange: The judge said nothing about this as if he did not detect anything fishy here, a major error.

Analyst comment:
Plaintiffs never withdrew the claim, therefore it is an unresolved matter of the case.

And no legal expenses had to be paid by ACEMLA-LAMCO parties.

Analyst comment:
The absurd ACEMLA and Peermusic sentences:
Plaintiffs are awarded $21,000 for the illegal registering of copyrights and licensing by ACEMLA and Peer, who, by their action have have stolen hundreds of songs, have  destroyed lives and plaintiffs businesses. Glenn Monroig, on the other hand was awarded by the same court over $7.5 million for the mere use of a single song and simple use without license is far less serious violation than registering and claiming to own the songs and issuing licenses to others, as have done ACEMLA and Peermusic.  Plaintiffs also get to loose the rights to 21 songs, songs which are already in the Peermusic dead pile of songs, none of which have been licensed by Peermusic in the last 50 years, to plaintiffs knowledge. Plaintiffs are also stuck with two huge legal bills thanks to Mr. Fuste. The question here: Are cases decided depending on who has the right connections or the right lawyer or the right judge or all of the above?

The Legal Expenses defat of plaintiffs:
The cost in legal fees to get the $21,000 mentioned above as awards, were close to $200,000, of which only $23,000 were paid by Peermusic and none by LAMCO parties.
See here: THE COST OF GETTING $21,000 AWARDS: OVER $250,000

The message by Fuste: Copyrights infringement pays.

Note: Fuste, in an obvious error, did not even declare that ACEMLA-LAMCO was an infringer, let alone an intentional infringer (intentional infringement forces the court to double the damages or award all infringer income because of the infringer's failure to produce deductible expenses). 

Interestingly, no infringement (direct, vicarious or contributory) was found for defendants Chavez, Bernard or Lacomba and ACEMLA, which is a separate corporation and infringer from LAMCO. The Judge does not explain why he decided not to find these persons as infringers. The judge also ignored the lawyer conflict problem.

* The theory of equity states that everyone is treated equally and that is why the legal system is based on jurisprudence, a philosophy for the attainment of equity.

Analyst comment:
This document had a purpose: Get GVL songs "without the author suspecting". Judge Fuste sees nothing wrong and is silent about the document on his decision.

Analyst comment:
The absurd claim made by Judge Fuste is totally made up and fabricated by himself out of own volition. No one ever said such an absurd statement at the trial and if anyone did it would have been perjury.

Analyst comment:
A clear and crass error by Judge Fuste. In his decision, Fuste claims that actual performances of songs under an ACEMLA licence was not proven, so infringement by ACEMLA and others was not proven. That in itself is a ridiculous proposition that pretends that paying a song is a worse type of infringement than the stealing of a songs, a criminal infringement. Fuste also forgets that the infringement by one of the defendants (Chavez) was to authorize ACEMLA to license other, and ACEMLA did aurhorized others and authorized others to authorize others down the line. Per Fuste Chavez did not commit infringement (because authorization is not infringement - the law says otherwise - and all Chavz did was authorize ACEMLA to become and act as owner) and has only had to return whatever royalties she collected from ACEMLA, which are $5,000 of the same $16,000 that ACEMLA was ordered to restitute, which anyway comes out of someone else's pocket.

The judge sided with the thives.
Apparently no one has heard of the Hotaling v. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints case, where it was established that the mere listing of a work in a library catalogue was infringement, even if there was no proof anyone actually borrowed the book (microfiche in the case). The decision states:

Hotaling v. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
U.S. Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit
June 30, 1997
118 F.3d 199, 43 USPQ2d 1299

If, as the Church says, actual use by the public must be shown to establish distribution, no one can expect a copyright holder to prove particular instances of use by the public when the proof is impossible to produce because the infringing library has not kept records of public use. To reiterate, a copyright holder should not be prejudiced in this manner, nor should an infringer benefit from its failure to keep records. In this case, the Church’s library did not record instances of public use of the Hotaling microfiche.

The judge: Stealing a song for many years is not as bad as singing it once.

But a judge of the same court where Judge Fuste is chief judge, Juan Perez Gimenez opinion of August 1, 2005 (on consolidated case # 96-2312, Peermusic vs. LAMCO) contradicts Judge Fuste. In the case before Judge Perez Gimenez Peermusic proclaimed that ACEMLA-LAMCO infringed the rights of Peer by having Peermusic owned songs in ACEMLA catalog. In that case, unlike this case, the court did not require proof of actual song performance as Fuste did in this case. Anyway, when there was overwhelming proof of performance, Fuste ignored it. See here, for a laugh.

Juge Perez Gimenez stated:

[T]he LAMCO Parties left a not insignificant number of songs that did not belong to them in their catalogue, and although they claim that they were never licensed, this Court finds that it is enough that they were listed in the catalogue. The Court … now expressly holds that LAMCO’s failure to remove them from their catalogue constituted infringement.

Juge Perez Gimenez further stated:

"On August 14, 2001, the Court issued an Opinion and Order regarding the Peer Parties’ motion for summary judgment, and the LAMCO Parties’ cross-motion. The Court reviewed the claims and defenses of the parties, and found that the Peer Parties were entitled to a presumption of ownership. The Court noted the LAMCO Parties’ admission that they had left in their catalogue by accident nearly two hundred songs in which they had no interest, concluding that in all likelihood such acts qualified as infringement."

Juge Perez Gimenez further stated:

"The Court having adopted the Special Master’s Report and Recommendations regarding these songs, it now expressly holds that LAMCO’s failure to remove them from their catalogue constituted infringement."

Juge Perez Gimenez further stated:

"Having determined that the LAMCO Parties infringed on the Peer Parties’ copyrights, the Peer Parties have a right to recover damages. 17 U.S.C. § 504(a). They have requested minimum statutory damages in the amount of $750, as provided by 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), for each of the 457 works found by the Special Master to be owned by the Peer Parties."

Clearly no proof of actual copying or performaces were seen by the judge for each and every one of the 457 song claimed by Peermusic. This decision confirms what the judge said, that by merely having the songs in their catalog, LAMCO infringed each and all songs claimed by Peer.

Very interesting facts about this case's decisions by Judge Perez Gimenez:

1. Peermusic lawyers switched positions. In the Venegas vs Peer litigation, Peermusic legal representation argued that licensing a song for public performance cannot constitute infringement without direct evidence that the song was publicly performed. On the other hand, in the case before Judge Perez Gimenez, the same Peer legal representation took the contrary position, that authorization by inclusion in a licensed catalogue does constitute infringement. In each case, the judge favored the Peermusic positions even thought they were in contradiction. Clearly judicial bias. The consequenses of Judge Fuste declaring that listing in a catalog was not infringement was very damaging to plaintiffs, GVL children. A question that arises here is, will lawyers who argue plainly contradictory arguments, depending on the convenience of the moment while knowing they are wrong be sanctioned by the court? 

2. Peer sued LAMCO alleging infringement of two alleged Guillermo Venegas songs: Genesis and Borracho Sentimental. Peer has no right to either song. Genesis because it belongs to the heir children of GVL (and the widow if the heir children do not prevail on appeal) and because the song Borracho Sentimental was not composed by Guillermo Venegas at all. In the opinion of Perez Gimenez no mention is made of these facts and the impression is given that the court (master) determined that Peer prevailed on their infringement claim for these songs.

3. Peer asked for and received minimum statutory damages of $750 per infringed song. This is very strange considering that part of the damages must go to the beneficial owners of the songs, if Peer does the reasonable thing of sharing lawsuit earnings with the beneficial owners. It is also strange that the damages were not doubled because the infringements were intentional. We must suspect here that the problem that Peer had was that the songs had a history of little or no earnings for beneficial owners of the infringed songs (due to mismanagement?), so actual losses were little or none nill and Peer did not want anyone to become aware of it's mismanagement.

So for the "appropriation" infringement of 418 songs damages of $323,500 ($750 per song) was awarded. As stated elsewhere for the "use" infringement of one song, this same court awarded damages of over $7.5 million in the Glenn Monroig case. Clearly the message of the court is that the mere usage of a song without a license is 1,000 times  more damaging than the appropriation of a song when in fact it is the other way around. This may she some lifgt to the absurd sentence against ACEMLA and against Peer in our case.

Interesting facts:
1. Judge Perez Gimenez based his decision on the Holing jurisprudence which we had posted here for a long time.
2. In this case the Holing jurisprudence was not even required in the case of Chavez, the executor of the Venegas estate, because the executor had illegally appropriated the songs and gave them to ACEMLA. who in turn licensed others. There is no way the judge Fuste could not realize the infringement of Chavez, because ACEMLA in fact had issued licenses for their catalog which included the songs that the executor had illegally appropriated. Why he ignored the separate infringement acts by the executor (Chavez) is for legal scholars to decide.

The judge: Stealing a song for many years is not as bad as singing it once.

Analyst comment:
None other than that the absurdity of the sentence is obvious.
The judge sided with the thives.

Analyst comment:
The consequences are obvious.

Analyst comment:
This gets as ridiculous as is possible because the "no talk" posture of Peermusic is the only cause of this lawsuit. The Fuste decisions can also means that composers that assign rights to publishers (Peer) or their successors who are beneficial owners of the songs that are assigned, have no rights to information from their agent publisher. Certainly this "no talk" principle pronounced by Mr. Slotnick is the reason Peermusic did not reply to letter of plaintiffs attorney Benicio Sanchez Rivera which provoked the lawsuit. The fact that the letter (and previous ones directly from plaintiffs) were not answered provoked the lawsuit against Peer. Conclusion: The court supports tyranny against composers and artists, or at least, does nothing about it.

Wrote Rafael Venegas to Peermusic on 10-20-04, when making requests for information about additional and probably stolen songs not covered in the trial as a resut of Peer's action of hiding documents:

"I will take Slotnick policy as a just an foolish remark about a policy that Mr. Slotnick invented for convenience at the trial, to fool the judge, since no sane person at any enterprise would ever say such a foolish thing. I imagine that no one at Peer really told that to Mr. Slotnick, that, although it was the real Peermusic policy. It would be so at odd with your detailed description of Peermusic as such an highly respected, altruistic and company that is benevolent toward composers. After all, people remember."

Note: Peer Attorney Barry Slonick is current president of the Copyright Society of the USA. His client get their copyrights without the author suspecting and witout the author's heirs having a right to know how the copyrights were obtained. Who would suspect!

Analyst comment:
The turnaround by Fuste means that ACEMLA keeps the $43,000 that was paid by Banco Popular for the performance of Genesis to ACEMLA or the entire amount of $260,000. Interestingly Judge Fuste did not even order ACEMLA to returned illegally collected performance money to plaintiffs.

On a separate lawsuit, Banco Popular may have to pay the $43,000 that were already paid to ACEMLA. The judge did not order the return of the money to Banco Popular.

More on Banco Popular money split and award to plaintiffs...

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Bank Fraud is a felony

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
The disappeared ACEMLA-LAMCO escrow account money

Analyst comment:
The law sets minimum statutory damages of $750 per infringement. If the estate executor, who gave all GVL songs to ACEMLA  infringed 700 songs by the action of giving the songs to ACEMLA, then the minimum was $750 x 700 or $52,500 in damages, minimum. Since the estate executor infringement was not a simple use, but rather the taking of the songs for many years, then the reasonable damages should be much higher. This is part of the absurd sentence. Since ACEMLA was a contributory infringer, they should also be responsible for whatever amount estate executor cannot pay. Again, the absurdity of the sentence is obvious.

The judge: Stealing a song for many years is not as bad as singing it once.

Analyst comment:
Judge Fuste used a wrong theory to deny rescission. Judge Fuste did not even rescind the Peermusic ownership of the song Borracho Sentimental, which GVL did not compose and could not have assigned to Peer. We think this might be related to the fact that the song Borracho Sentimental is pending in Peermusic vs, ACEMLA case under Judge Perez-Gimenez.

Interesting: Peermusic argument for rescission, included here, states the to rescind a contract all certain things must ocurr, and they all ocurred and all were established in court:
- Fraud (get songs "without the authotr suspecting")
- Failure of considerarion (Peermusic got songs for nothing).
- Breach of contract (Peermusic never promoted songs and did not pay the almost nothing royalties that has accrued)
- Inability. Peermusic was never able to get any new recording that heirs now of of a GVL song it now claims to own in 50 years. Peermusic is also unable to exploit the songs because it has no scores for the songs.

The judge did not see anything wrong in the absurd Peermusic argument for rescission.

Analyst comment:
Judge Fuste reduced the number of registered (stolen) songs to makes LAMCO look less bad.The judge omits also the important fact that LAMCO had no right to register the songs and that it was done without the plaintiffs, the song owners, being notified and with malice. None of this counted at the time of determining damages by LAMCO partie. Amazing.

The facts:
1. The estate executor gave LAMCO every GVL song, then known and unknown, estimated at about 700 songs. Each of those songs was in fact infringed.
2. The LAMCO catalog (on 8-14-04) posted on the Internet had listed 267 songs. Each song was infringed.
3. False copyrght registration are criminal offenses per the Copyright Act, section 506(e): (e) False Representation. - 
    Any person who knowingly makes a  false representation of a material fact in the application for copyright registration provided for by section 409, or in any written statement filed in connection with the application, shall be fined not more than $2,500. 
The judged overlooked the criminal acts. 

Note: Whatever copies of songs were included by ACEMLA-LAMCO in their copyright registration filings constituted infringement because the copies were not authorized by the owners of the rights, the plaintiffs. This infringement went unnoticed by the judge.

Note: Each of the 80 songs (works)  were infringed at least once by three parties:
1. Chavez, who assigned the rights to ACEMLA-LAMCO.
2. LAMCO, by copying the songs for the purpose of registering them at the copyright office.
3. ACEMLA. by authorizing their airplay to radio stations and others.
This means that there had to be an award of 240 infringed works. For these infringements not a single cent was awarded in damages.
More: LAMCO party damages...

Strange: The judge did not consider the act of criminal copyright infringement (section Sec. 506. Criminal offenses, (e) False Representation) when material facts are stated wrong when applying for a copyright registration, as ACEMLA-LAMCO did when they registered the 80 songs.

This is from a New York Sate docuemtn: Power of Attorney published by the office the Attorney General:

Powers of Attorney are only as good as the Agents who are appointed. Appointing a trustworthy person as an Agent is critical. Without a trustworthy Agent, a Power of Attorney becomes a dangerous legal instrument, and a threat to the Principal's best interests.

The Agent named in a Power of Attorney is your representative, not your "boss." As long as you have the legal capacity to make decisions, you can direct your Agent to do only those things that you want done. 

The Agent is obligated to act in the best interests of the Principal, and to  avoid any "self-dealing." Self-dealing is acting to further the selfish interests of the Agent, rather than the best interest of the Principal.

Here we ask a few questions: Was Peer trustworthy? See here: Without thee author suspecting. Was the employee at Peer who was de-facto the agent with the power of attorney trustworthy to the principal who never met the agent?
Was Peer "self dealing" when using the power of attorney for assigning themselves songs for a renewal period even though they were a total failure in their exploitation of the songs, not getting a single new recording in almost 800 song years (20 songs over 40 years) in any song assigned to them by Guillermo Venegas..? 

5. The time and method of using a power of attorney where:
     a. The person using the power of attorney was not the assignee of the power.
     b. There is no way to tell the name of the actual signer or forger.
     c. The assignor of the power was not notified when the power was used.
     d. The signature of the author was not written by author (forged?)
         and no mention is made that there was a power of attorney to back up the signature.
     e. The power had anyway expired in 1964 along with the contract that assigned the power of attorney.
      f. The law requires the actual signature of the author. Peer alleged that the power of attorney given by GVL made the actual signature unecessary, but the so called power of attorney was not valid.
      g. No evidence was ever presented that in fact GVL ever got a copy of the contract of 1952 where he gave the possibly illegal power of attorney.
       h. The power of attorney was not notarized, therefore ilegal.
6. Peermusic failure to pay royalties for past 10 years.
7. What ACEMLA-LAMCO must do with their illegal copyright registrations.

etc. etc.

8-3

Analyst comment:
1. The letter was not shown or copied or even mentioned by Peer to GVL heirs before the lawsuit was filed. Because of this the letter is inadmissible as evidence.
1. Letter is not signed by Peermusic and that was a requirement on the letter itself. So the letter is an invalid contract at best.
2. Letter was written at the same time and place as another letter where one Peermusic executive tells another to get GVL songs "without the author suspecting". Clearly fraud was taking place.
3. The page with all the imposrtant text and song names is unsigned, so tha a swith was very possible, by the same ones cerrying out the ""without the author suspecting".
4. At least one song and pssiblt many songs in the lettee were not composed by GVL but now belong to Peer, even though Peermusic has no musical score.

"GVL to Peer" Letter
Note: The letter was actually made by Peer, so it is a Peer to GVL letter.
Also the letter was never recorded by Peer as required by the copyright law then in effect.

Aha! there is even a copy - see here- that was never signed by GVL. Can anyone imagine GVL or anyone sending a letter to anyone without signing it? Of course not, because the fact is the GVL could never have written this letter, as he did not compose the named song "Borracho Sentimental" and possibly others no one knows anything about, such as "Mas alla" and "Llega la noche", songs appropiated from others or credited to the wrong composer by Peer.. 

Interesting Fuste Bias: This alleged 1964 Venegas to Peer letter of assignments does not assign any renewal rights. Yet Fuste reversed himself (in his decision awarding Chavez renewal rights because renewal rights were not mentioned in her agreement with the Venegas plaintiffs) by awarding Peermusic renewal rights even though these were not mentioned (or possibly given).Evidently Fuste was always biased against plaintiffs!!! 

Note: In the opinion of this analyst if the plaintiffs had gone to BMI to unregister the GVL songs at BMI, BMI would have ignored plaintiffs just as the record company BMG (who, by the way, shares lawyers with Peer) ignored plaintiffs when advised by plaintiffs that plaintiffs owned the song Genesis and not Peermusic. BMG is still producing infringing records under authorization by Peermusic and Judge Fuste took no action to stop that infringement.

Interestingly BMG nor Peer has ever divulged to plaintiffs or to the judge how many infringing records have been manufactured by BMG and sold or where. Clearly an unsettled matter. Worse, yet: Per Fuste Peer's income from this ifringement is identical to their income from another but separate infringements. The two infringements are separated by about 7 years, one being the licensing for a television performance and sale of a video (Un Pueblo Que Canta) during 10 years and the other being the production of an unrelated CD - both of the same song by the same performer, Lucecita Benitez.  INCREDIBLE. See here: BMG damages per Fuste.

Amazing: The judge did not realize that Peermusic was claiming that the heirs of GVL could have the songs removed from the repertoires of the performance organization such as BMI and ASCAP while contradictorily claiming they the owned the songs which would mean (id Peermusic had rights over the songs) that plaintiffs had no authority to have the songs removed. See update regarding removal from the ASCAP repertoire. The judge makes no mention in his opinion the Peermusic claim that the heirs of GVL could have gone to BMI to have the GVL songs remove, we believe to solve a huge problem for Peer, that they contracted themselves and committed perjury (See below). 

Update: During seven week starting in February 25, 2005 plaintiffs have tried to have some songs it owns from the ASCAP repertoire. The efforts have not worked and no songs have been removed we estimate because Peermusic has not authorized or requested the removal. Clearly a Peermusic employee committed perjury during the trial. An incredible thing is that Peermusic itself has not taken the initiative to have the songs removed from the ASACAP and BMI repertoire after saying plaintiffs, the heirs of Guillermo Venegas, could have and should have done the removal themselves. No one has to be a brain surgeon to see the level of stupidity of Peermusic and how easily they deceived the court, a court that makes no mention, in its opinion, of the Peermusic claim that songs could have been removed by the plaintiffs while at the same time, incredibly, claiming that the plaintiffs were not the owners of the songs.

Judge Fusté erred by allowing two different, unrelated lawsuits to be combined as requested by Peermusic. In essence Peermusic chose the judge that was to see their case. In requesting the change in judge, Peermusic gave no valid reason but it stated that the two cases were identical (nothing is further from the truth)  as to why the original judge assigned (Judge Consuelo Vargas de Cerezo) was inadequate for Peermusic and Judge Fusté was adequate or better. The lawsuits against Peermusic and ACEMLA parties were two very different lawsuits that did not depend on the same issues, the same facts, the same transactions, the same testimony, the same witnesses, the same evidence or the same discovery or any knd of concerted actions by defendants. As a result the case may have become too complex for the court to adequately grasp. The arrangement made by Judge Fusté created the condition where plaintiffs had as adversaries in the same case two music publishers that share many common interests and behavior on one hand and are alleged adversaries in another lawsuit (Peermusic vs. ACEMLA, where Peermusic alleges that ACEMLA illegally claims ownership of over 400 songs owned by Peermusic and ACEMLA has claimed that it has a right to own them because Peermusic did not pay royalties to the beneficial owners, the composers and the composer heirs). 

The joinder (consolidation) of the two cases was made while the plaintiffs had no legal representation. As a result no opposition was made by defendants. Perfect timing by the now federal judge Besosa and wrong timing by Fusté.

The Peermusic lawyer who told Judge Fusté that the two cases were identical was local attorney and now judge Francisco A. Besosa (more about Besosa and his $1,000,000 absurd claim of lawyer fees), of the law firm Adsuar Muñiz Goyco & Besosa. In fact the two cases were different and unrelated.

Clearly under the Federal Rules such joinder was improper. The result of reamwork by judge Fuste and a now judge Besosa.

Says Rule 20 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure:

Permissive Joinder of Parties

(2) Defendants.

Persons — as well as a vessel, cargo, or other property subject to admiralty process in rem — may be joined in one action as defendants if:

(A) any right to relief is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative with respect to or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences; and

(B) any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action. 

In another federal court case the judge defined the normal legal reasons -indicia- for joinder:
    1. The claims in the complaint indicate that the claims result from the same incident or incidents;
    2. The claims against the defendants do not require different trials, since there would be no different evidence, no different theories, no different defenses, etc.
    3. There will be the same issues of fact;
    4. There is indication that plaintiff's alleged injuries arose from the same transactions or occurrences.

Clearly this is a case of judge shopping (the term forum-shopping is used to describe the action of seeking the most favorable court whan a lawsuit is to be filed) by defendants Peermusic and attorney Besosa.

Strangely, the plaintiffs filed one lawsuit against two record producers, Sonolux and Sony for identical cause: Sale and distribution (in partnership by the two record companies) of the same records. All 4 conditions to allow joincer were met but the cases were not joined, as requested by plaintiffs on 3/7/02. Actually no decision or reply regarding the joiner request of plaintiffs was ever issued by the court. This has been very hurtful to defendants. Odd and inconsistent behavior by the court presided by Judge Fuste.

Also very strangely on 3-12-02 Fuste rejected (another error) a Sony request to have a Venegas vs Sony lawsuit combined with the Venegas vs ACEMLA-LAMCO lawsuit. The lawsuit against Sony was for the alleged infringement of songs belonging to GVL children that ACEMLA-LAMCO illegally licensed to Sony and Sonolux as (alleged) "owners" of the songs.

Note: The cases against Sony and Sonolux (see here for results) were filed in february 2001. The Sony case was terminated in march, 2007.  Strangely it was requested from the court to combine the two, basically identical Sony and Sonolux cases but the court rejected the request (no explanation given) even though the two cases were basically identical, whereas the Venegas lawsuits to Peermusic and ACEMLA-LAMCO were totally unrelated to each other, were combined. Sonolux has produced about 22 records with GVL songs without any legal licenses. After the records were in the market, worthless  licenses were obtained by Sonolux from ACEMLA-LAMCO.

See data here that shows that the less than $2.000 was at least $39,000.

Analyst comment:
As always, everything surrounding Peer is shrouded in deceit. 

Analyst comment:
A jury, composed of non lawyers and would argue among themselves the issue of the trial, would have decided in a few days only.

It is incomprehensible, to take so long to err so much.

ROOKER et al. v. FIDELITY TRUST CO. U.S. Supreme Court decision states that Distrct Courts may nor revise State Court decisions. Only the Supreme Court can, if a timely apeal is made.

Additionally Fuste made a an error in taking for granted the song Genesis had real renewal rights. Since GVL only gave a license to a Mexican publisher while  retained the rights for his territory, that publisher was never an owner of the song (regardless of what the contract said) and could not take out a copyright registration in the authors' territory as they did. 

Analyst comment:
See here for more on owneship.

Analyst comment:
To this day (4-1-05) Peer has not notified ASCAP to remove the songs from their catalog, meaning that the last license issued by ASCAP is a license to use these songs... so the infringement contunues after the trial ended. The ASCAP web page still has the songs in their catalog, as verified on April 2005. With ACEMLA-LAMCO and Peermusic-ASCAP and plaintiffs all claiming ownership rights to this song the effect is the the song is no longer performed by anyone in Puerto Rico out of fear of using the song with a license from the wrong party.

Note: As of 8-8-05 ASCAP has refused to remove the named songs Apocalipsis and Génesis  from their catalog as requested by GVL Inc. This is of course temerity on the art of Peer and ASCAP.

Analyst comment:
This is a repeat error. In year 2000 the Puerto Rico courts decided that the music of GVL belonged to plaintiffs. No judicial order was issued by the court. As a result ACEMLA-LAMCO has not been ordered to STOP doing business with the music of GVL, or even requested by anyone to return to plaintiffs whatever musical material they received from the widow. As a result ACEMLA-LAMCO parties know of GVL songs that plaintiffs, who are the real owners, know nothing about. It seems as if the judicial system is not set up for performing simple, logical actions so that cases are resoved in a final manner and do not require lawsuit after lawsuit to achive waht is just. Fuste, who is the president of the court did not understand this nor showed any sympathy towards plaintiffs plight.

Analyst comment:
Peer has never explained to anyone, including the judge, what is the legal basis for their claiming to own the songs for "the rest of the world". Of course this could be justified under the Peer theory that plaintiffs have no right to information.

Note: International rules including the TRIPs Agreement and the Berne Convention allow the U.S. to enforce its copyright rules under local laws in over 100 participating nations. 

9-6-85     Cuando me vaya  (0044)
12-21-81 Dejame que te diga (0049)
12-21-81 No te vayas asi (0049)
7-9-76     Mas alla   (0067)
6-23-83   Por el camino  (0079)
6-23-83   Una cancion   (0079)
6-2-80     Cien mil corazones (0100)
6-2-80     Una cancion (0199)

Additionally the renewal period for the song TU BIEN LO SABES commenced in 1999 (registered on 9-9-71), so those rights belong to plaintiffs. So by claiming ownership and having the song in their catalog Peer infringed the song.

Interesting: The song Tu bien lo sabes is being, at present, licensed in Mexico by Peermusic co-publisher and partner in Mexico, PHAM. Problem is that the have as credited another author (Lazo Pena Alfaro Eduardo) as the composer of the song. A nice way to avoid the payment of royalties. This song was the among first hits (if not the first) of legendary Mexican Trio Los Panchos.

Analyst comment:
At the time that these renewal assignmets were made GVL was alive, so Peer had two options: Get the actual GVL signature to obtain the renewal period rights, that is, obtain the rights from GVL or accept that the renewal rights were then onward owned by GVL. In effect, the rights returned to GVL. This is what the Copyright Act says:

Sec. 205. Recordation of transfers and other documents
     (a) Conditions for Recordation. - 
Any transfer of copyright ownership or other document pertaining to a copyright may be recorded in the Copyright Office if the document filed for recordation bears the actual signature of the person who executed it, or if it is accompanied by a sworn or official certification that it is a true copy of the original, signed document. 

Supreme Court decision: FISHER MUSIC CO. v. M. WITMARK (1943): "Since the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1870, 16 Stat. 198, 213, assignments of copyrights must be recorded in the office of the Register of Copyrights." Peer never recorded the 1952 contract signed by GVL nor the 1984 agreement letter, the two documents used by Peer to "prove" their ownership rights. 

This is where the Slotnick theory that plaintiffs had no right to information came in handy and this is clearly a reason why Peer did no show their proof of ownership when that proof was reqested by plaintiffs before the lawsuit and why Peer requested assignments of these songs from plaintiffs in 1997. Everything Peer did was illegal and deceitful. The forged signatures are just that: forgery and that is fraud.

Note: States copyright attorney Ivan Hoffman at http://www.ivanhoffman.com/termination.html that for assignments made before January 1, 1978, "A creator may not contract away the creator’s rights to renew a copyright or to terminate the grant.".

The same Supreme Court decision: FISHER MUSIC CO. v. M. WITMARK (1943) establishes that authors can sell their renewal rights before they accrue in exchange for a benefit. What Peer alleges means that they get renewal rights in exchange for no consideration, meaning for free,  without any separate negotiation or understanding of what renewal rights are. It was an error of Fuste no to declare null the assignments of renewal rights in the blanket contract signed by GVL wherby unnamed songs were assigned to Peermusic.

Note: Since all songs that Peermusic claims to own should be in their renewal period, and Peermusic has no legal assignment of those renewal ALL PEERMUSIC SONGS BELONG TO PLAINTIFFS. If Peermusic claims that some songs are not in their renewal period because it was never copyright registered, then that means that Peermusic schemed so that such songs never reached their renewal period so it would never reach a renewal period and would never return to the composer. GREAT SCHEME. Additionally by not registering songs whatever assignment was made to Peer could never be terminated by the author, as allowed by the law, because the law allows termination after a number of years after a song is registered. No registration, no termination. This scheme was actually admitted by Peermusic in the trial. Peer said that the delays in some copyright registration was to extend the Peermusic ownership period. Of course the looser of the scheme was the composer and the plaintiffs, if the Fuste decisions are left standing. BUT THE GREAT SCHEME IS PART OF THE TRIAL RECORD. 

AN IMP0RTANT QUESTION HERE IS:
HOW MAY SONGS THAT ARE IN THE PEERMUSIC CATALOG ARE THERE ILLEGALLY BECAUSE PEERMUSIC HAS NO RIGHTS TO THE SONGS BECAUSE THEY REVERTED TO THE AUTHOR WHO DID NOT RENEW THE ASSIGNMENTS WHEN THE RENEWAL PERIOD ARRIVED? 100,000 OR MORE? WHO KNOWS. CERTAINLY ALL SONGS GVL "ASSIGNED" TO PEERMUSIC ARE IN THIS "ILLEGAL OWNERSHIP" CATEGORY. CERTAINLY, IF PEERMUSIC NEVER EXPLAINED THESE RENEWAL RIGHTS TO THE HEIRS OF GVL, AND NEVER RESPECTED THEM, WE MUST ASSUME ALL COMPOSERS WERE EQUALLY ILL TREATED. WILL PEER GET A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FROM THESE COMPOSERS AND HEIRS? WHO KNOWS!

Biggest scam of all time: Renewal Rights Appropiation

Analyst comment:
None. It is all very clear. Fuste thinks (or wants others to beleive) that BPPR (Banco Popular de Puerto Rico) was billed for and paid $43,000 to obtain a retroactive license for a song they had not used. It is also clear that by LAMCO issued fraudulent licenses to Banco Popular because it did not have rights over the licensed song, Genesis. 

Note: Banco Popular money split and award to plaintiffs
ACEMLA parties alleged that the money ($260,000) paid by BPPR was for the performance of all the songs in their catalog (repertoire). This allegation has several problems:
a. ACEMLA produced no document to show it ever gave BPPR a copy of their catalog and no one knows how many GVL songs may have been licensed. A copy of the catalog was not produced by ACEMLA during discovery for the inspection by plaintiffs. Recently (early 2005) ACEMLA had 267 GVL songs listed on their web page.
b. No one knows how many sogs were or are currently in the ACEMLA repertoire. Rumor has it that the repertoire is anywhere from 6,000 to 15,000 songs, many songs being there illegally because they are not owned by ACEMLA or because they are in the public domain).
c. In all events, entities like ACEMLA should divide the money received through a blanket license for an entire catalog among the beneficial owners based on the actual performances, whether based on actual count of performances or on a sampling, as other performance rights orgnizations do or say they do. ACEMLA has never shown how the $260,000 was split among the various beneficial owners they represent and other owners that they do not represent. The judge did not award a single cent from the $260,000 to plaintiffs for the ilegal use licensing of Genesis or any of the other hundreds of GVL songs  that allegedly were included in the blanket lisenses issued by ACEMLA. It is as if plaintiffs have no right to share in the $260,000 even thought their song was used by BPPR and paid for (without their permission) and paid ACEMLA for the use. The rule for copyright infringement damages says that if ACEMLA did not show deductibles (how money was split), the entire $260,000 had to be awarded to plaintiffs.

Note: ACEMLA has never voluntarily divulged their licensing to Banco Popular or paid a single cent of the money they received from Banco Popular to the owners of the songs, the plaintiffs. Apparently the judge saw nothing wrong in this plain theft.

See Fuste Opinion Page: 74-17

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Bank Fraud is a felony

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
The disappeared ACEMLA-LAMCO escrow account money

The other LAMCO infringements:
A royalty report of LAMCO dated 3-11-02 nd covering a 1999-2001 period, indicates that LAMCO licensed at least these Venegas songs. Miedo, Tu bien lo sabes, Desde que te marchaste, No me digan cobarde. for which royalties were received, from many record companies and coutries. Each of these records constitute an infringement by LAMCO. The court ignored these infrinements by LAMCO.
 

1. US LAW
Sec. 501. Infringement of copyright 
     (a) Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner      as provided by sections 106 through 118 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a),

Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
     Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: 

Note:The congressional record explains why the word authorize was included and gives an example: If a movie is rented to a theater without the owner's authorizaton, the mere rental is an infringement.

2. WIPO GENEVA CONVENTION 
WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION
GENEVA DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCE
ON CERTAIN COPYRIGHT AND NEIGHBORING RIGHTS QUESTIONS
Geneva, December 2 to 20, 1996
WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATY

Article 6 
Right of Distribution
(1) Authors of literary and artistic works shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing the making available to the public of the original and copies of their works through sale or other transfer of ownership.

Article 8
Right of Communication to the Public
Without prejudice to the provisions of Articles 11(1)(ii), 11bis(1)(i) and (ii), 11ter(1)(ii), 14(1)(ii) and 14bis(1) of the Berne Convention, authors of literary and artistic works shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing any communication to the public of their works, by wire or wireless means, including the making available to the public of their works in such a way that members of the public may access these works from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

THE ABOVE MEANS THAT USA, IN ORDER TO COMPLY WITH THE BERNE CONVENTION, MUST CLASSIFY NON-OWNERS AUTHORIZATION TO PERFORM AS AN INFRINGEMENT.

The judge: Stealing a song for many years is not as bad as singing it once.

3. PEER'S OWN ARGUMENT IN PEER VS. LAMCO CASE:
In violation of its exclusive right “to authorize,” Peer contended that LAMCO “ha[d] issued public performance licenses to and collected royalties from broadcasters for the works contained in [LAMCO’s] Catalog” which were owned by Peer.  [Id.]
In the same brief, Peer well explained the legal basis for finding that LAMCO’s authorization to broadcasters of works owned by Peer constitutes infringement: While most copyright infringement cases involve unauthorized copying of a plaintiff’s work, any unauthorized use or violation of a copyright owner’s exclusive rights set forth in § 106 constitutes an act of copyright infringement.  Copyright Act, § 501.  See Repp v. Webber, 914 F.Supp. 80, 83 (S.D.N.Y. 1996) (defendants’ unauthorized granting of licenses to third parties to reproduce copies of song constituted infringing acts); CMAX/Cleveland, Inc. v. UCR, Inc., 804 F.Supp. 337, 351, 357 (M.D. Ga. 1992) (defendants infringed plaintiff’s copyright in computer software system by asserting ownership over infringing version of software and licensing the right to use the infringing software to third parties).  See generally Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 435 n.17 (1984) (“[A]n infringer is not merely one who used a work without authorization by the copyright owner, but