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.

Very strange: The date of January 28, 2000, where the Puerto Rico court stated that all rights belonged to the children of Venegas and that if Chavez had any rights she expressly ceded them to the children. That was appealed by Chavez. Fuste ignored the decision of January 28 ignored the appeal to favor ACEMLA.  Fuste made a sham of res-judicat.

Very strange: While LAMCO parties claimed that they had renewal rights on some songs, they made no such claim for termination rights. Fuste awarded 20 percent on 8 renewal songs, but failed to award termination rights to LAMCO parties and they would have been a 50 percent share in 21 songs. Well not so strange after all. By giving LAMCO parties 20 percent on 8 songs, that means that less rights belong to plaintiffs, GVL heirs, whereas if termination rights had been awarded to LAMCO parties, those rights would have meant less rights for Peermusic.

Note: In march 7, 1997 GVL estate executor Chavez-Butler (now part of LAMCO parties) tried to terminate the songs with Peer. Peermusic should have at least told her the dates when termination rights accrued under their theories. Instead Peermusic never replied to Chavez Butler, apparently applying to her also the Slonick-Peermusi theory that GVL heirs had no right to information. It is very strange how Fuste decided about LAMCO party rights and that LAMCO parties did not object the leaving out of termination rights.

Note: By owning 20 percent of a song (the estate executor Chavez)  as decreed by Fuste, when that 20 percent owner previously stole over 500 songs from the GVL heirs (owners of the 80 percent) and on top of that sued the same GVL and on top of that exploited the song (over $60,000 income) without sharing any of the income with the other owners, the arrangement has a significant meaning overlooked (another error) by Fuste: The song is unexploitable since to exploy the song collaboration and payments of income between all owners is required. That means that Genesis is is unexploitable, commercially worthless, a total loss, since the GVL heirs could not even enforce their rights since to do that, any claim in court must represent 100 percent of the ownership and that cannot be achieved if there is no trust among the varios owners. This result is contrary to the constitutional intent of the copyright law, to promote the creation of works of art. Who will create art knowing that the art could end up dead because of court decisions (and because the law forces the creation of multiple owners), like in the present case.

Because of this interpretation of what was decided in state trial court, Fuste gave himself the liberty of deciding the ownership fate of 8 (renewal period) songs in favor of Chavez by ignoring the fact that Chavez had claimed federal law rights and that claim was rejected by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court and that was final for all courts unless appealed to the US Supreme court. As it turned out the appeal was made to Fuste by ACEMLA (who has no right to get involved in Chave's possible rights) who made the wrong decision that "The state trial court also concluded that it had no jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ copyright claims"

By deciding that Chavez had rights in 8 renewal period songs, after Puerto rico courts had decided she had no such rights, Fuste violated the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, that says federal courts cannot review what has been decided in state couert.

Note: If PHAM assigned the rights to the song to Peer, that is to their parent company, who wound up retaining 87 percent of the royalties on the fist royalty cut, this was not in the interest of GVL. In GVL's best interest, PHAM had to find co-publishers that actually promoted the use of the songs at the lowest cost, no a publishers like Peer who did no promotion at all and retained 87 percent of the royalties. An insider conspiracy against GVL but Peer owned PHAM? As ordered by Peer? We shall find out soon enough.

The basis of the Fuste comment is a  1964 letter that 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. The fact that the letter was never shown to heirs meant that heirs did not know when any song named in the letter was assigned so as to determine when the assignments could be terminated by the heirs so as to regain their control as allowed by law.

"GVL to Peer" Letter:  Page 1  Page 2
Notes:
The letter was actually made by Peer, so it is a Peer to GVL letter.
If GVL had refused to signed this letter, the songs would be stolen by Peer anyway per the "without the author suspecting" plan.

Also the letter was never recorded by Peer as required by the copyright law then in effect.
In essence, by not signing the agreement and forwarding a signed copy to the composer, Peer aquired no responsibility to the composer to exploit the songs for his benefit.

The letter has two pages. All the contract terms are on the first page. The signature is on page 2, the page that basically says nothing material. Since the two page letter fitted easily on one page it is clear that the idea was to have the ability to change page one and replace it with a new one, with terms and conditions that the signer of the letter never saw. This explains why GVL seems to certify the he composed the song BORRACHO SENTIMENTAL and assigned the song to Peer on page one, a song that GVL clearly did not composed. GVL wrote to Peer about this when he found out that Peer had put his name on the song BORRACHO SENTIMENTAL.

Note: Fuste took gave credence to this letter and it is based on it that he gave Peer the rights to many songs. Had he not done so Peer would have had to pay many millions of dollars in damages to plaintiffs. Fuste took five months to decide that this letter was legitimate, a clear error that saved Peer perhaps over $50,000,000 (fifty million dollars).

Note: Between the 1952 contract and this 1964 letter Peer did not have a single song recorded (at least no evidence of such a recording has ever been seen by plaintiffs. A contemporary Peer letter indicates that GVL claimed that Peer had done nothing with his songs.  If GVL had the option of not making this 1964 "assignment" why would GVL have done so in view of Peer history of non performance of the contract and its utter failure to have one single song recorded? Sounds wierd, doesn't it. The only explanation: The letter is a forgery - page one was switched. After all Peer was in an "without the author suspecting" mode of operation. After this letter was dated, Peer never got any of the songs recorded, in over 40 years. Some are really great songs.

Note: The letter in question is invalid because it it not signed by Peer. Also Peer presented no evidence that a signed copy was ever forwarded to GVL. Clearly for this letter to be considered a contract a Peer signed copy must have existed and forwarded to GVL. Otherwise GVL could not make any contractual claims against Peer.

The basis of the Fuste comment is a  1964 letter that 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.

"GVL to Peer" Letter:  Page 1  Page 2
Note: The letter was actually made by Peer, so it is a Peer to GVL letter.
If GVL had refused to signed this letter, the songs would be stolen by Peer anyway per the "without the author suspecting" plan.

Also the letter was never recorded by Peer as required by the copyright law then in effect.
In essence, by not signing the agreement and forwarding a signed copy to the composer, Peer aquired no responsibility to the composer to exploit the songs for his benefit.

Note: For the 1952 GVL-Peer contract to be modified through the 1964 letter of agreement cited by Fuste, there had to be additional considerarion (payment to GVL) for it to be effective (valid). But  instead of having additional consideration, the agreement required  GVL had to return money to Peer, the opposite of additional consideration.

By decreeing that Borracho Sentimental belongs to Peer that will have the effect that a recording may be produced in the future with the song identified as a GVL song, a moral rights violation against plaintiffs caused directly by Fuste.

Suspect that this Fuste decree re Borracho Sentimental is meant to save Peer from the embarrassment of Peer in its claim in Peer vs. LAMCO before Perez Gimenenz.

The decree that songs belong to Peer are wrong because Fuste has no proof that GVL wrote any of the songs, the only valid proof being the signature of GVL in a document with the song score or lyrics. Just a signature on a list of songs that include at least one non GVL song (Borracho Sentimental) makes the GVL declaration (on 1964 letter written by Peer) that he wrote the songs non valid, the only explanation being, since GVL was not a thief, that: 1) page one was switched by Peer after he signed the second page. 2) GVL did not understand the letter  because it was in english.

Note: The 1964 letter on which Fuste based his decision, as if the letter was a valid  contract,  is an invalid document because it has no Peer signature and the document itself states that without a Peer signature the document is not valid. Also for a contract to be valid, it must be signed by the two parties. Fuste makes no mention of this in his decision.

Note: The letter in question is invalid because Peer did not presented any evidence that a signed copy was ever forwarded to GVL. Clearly for this letter to be considered a contract a Peer signed copy must have existed and forwarded to GVL. Otherwise GVL could not make any contractual claims against Peer. Fuste makes no mention of this in his decision.

"GVL to Peer" Letter:  Page 1  Page 2
Note: The letter was actually made by Peer, so it is a Peer to GVL letter. In essence, by not signing the agreement and forwarding a signed copy to the composer, Peer aquired no responsibility to the composer to exploit the songs for his benefit.

If GVL had refused to signed this letter, the songs would be stolen by Peer anyway per the "without the author suspecting" plan.

More here: Renewal rights error.

Note: The letter of agreement was never recorded by Peer as required by the 1909 Copyright Act
§ 30.Same; record
Every assignment of copyright shall be recorded in the copyright office within three calendar months after its execution in the United States or within six calendar months after its execution without the limits of the United States, in default of which it shall be void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee for a valuable consideration, without notice, whose assignment has been duly recorded.

Because the document was not recorded, when the heirs of GVL did a search at the Copyright Office before suing Peer, the letter of agreement was not found. The purpose of the required by law recordation at the Coyright Office was precisely to put on notice that songs were assigned by the author.

See copy of agreement: "GVL to Peer" Letter:  Page 1  Page 2

Note: The letter was actually made by Peer, so it is a Peer to GVL letter.
If GVL had refused to signed this letter, the songs would be stolen by Peer anyway per the "without the author suspecting" plan.

See eternal copyright claim by Peermusic

Note: Everyone or every government agencyt that requires a power of attorney to allow a representation or a transaction alwats says or refets to "notarized power of attorney". Apparently Fuste does not know that. For example, in New York, whose laws allegedly apply to the GVL-Peer contract, for a transfer of an automobile, to represent another in the transaction a "notarized power of attorney" is required. 

To make sure, the author asked this question by telephoneto various Puerto Rico and New York State agencies: Is there any chance that an unotarized power of attorney have any valuee in the State of New York? These were the replies:
Puerto Rico Sate Department (787-723-4343) :None
Puerto Rico Supreme Court-Notary (787-723-6033) : None.
Puerto Rico Supreme Court-Notary Inspection (787-751-0457: None
New York State Department (518) 474-0050): None.

Additionally the renewal documents are signed with the name of Guillermo Venegas alone and that makes it impossible to determine who signed and if that was an officer of Peer and if whoever signed was authorized by New York state law. We believe that only these can sign in New York: A corporate officer, partner, or member or manager of a limited liability company and any other signature is invalid.

The fact that that the 1952 contract was not notarized meant that GVL, who did not understand the language of the contract (English) did not have the benefit of being asked by the lawyer notarizing the document if he understood the contract he was signing. In 1952 the vast majority of Puertoricans did not understand the English language. 

Note: Allegedly, on a separate case being herd in Puerto Rico courts (2007, Ketty Cabán vs. Peer) Peer has not been able to produce proof (royalty checks signed by Cabán) that they have made the royalty payments they claim to have made to Cabán because, allegedly, signed checks are not saved by Peer (as allegedly required by law).

Note: Peer claimed that it acquired the rights to the song from PHAM, a Mexican music publisher. The problem here is that whatever  assignment that GVL made to PHAM so that PHAM would manage the song, assuming it was legal,  did not allow PHAM to pass any rights (administration or otherwise) to others. So if PHAM transferred rights to Peer the transfer is invalid.

Also, the assignment of rights to PHAM by GVL were also invalid, as the assignment process did not comply with American copyright law for transferring rights at another country. The assignment was not not signed by any consular officer or secretary of legation as was required. This is what the law (Copyright Act of 1909) said:

Every assignment of copyright executed in a foreign country shall be acknowledged by the assignor before a consular officer or secretary of legation of the United States authorized by law to administer oaths or perform notarial acts. 

Note: The deal may have been illegal for the PHAM renewal songs if the PHAM assignments are covered by Mexican law on the argument that Mexico laws has no renewal periods and if PHAM still owned the songs for the world minus PR, Peer could not be working out "renewal" deals with plaintiffs, since their license from PHAM was still in effect.
Note: At the time that Peer offered the administrative deal (a better description is "request of assignments) plaintiffs did not know about renewals (except for having heard the word) and when plaintiffs asked Peer about (in writing) Peer did not reply. Peer did not even reply to a letter (see below) that preceded the lawsuit from plaintiff attorney Benicio Sanchez Rivera.

Note: Peer never notified plaintiffs that renewal in their name had been made by Peer. So only Peer knew they existed and that plaintiffs had become owners of Genesis but plaintiffs did not know it.

Very revealing of Fuste intentions: Fuste did not mention the Peer request that plaintiffs assign the songs to Peer in 1997  (see Fuste comment) , an act that plaintiffs could do only if plaintiffs were owners,  a crucial matter.

Mexico Law at present:
"Art. 33. In the absence of any express provision, any transfer of economic rights shall be deemed to be for a term of five
years. A term of more than 15 years may only be agreed upon in exceptional cases where dictated by the nature of the work or the scale of the required investment."
Judge Fuste makes no mention of this issue.

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

Error: Because of the judge's disparate decision, Disco Hit continues to infringr the rights of plaintiffs. Both Disco Hit and Peer are fully aware that they continue to infringe the rights of heirs. See sample here, of a CD purchased on 3-20-05 at a Walgreen pharmacy. The infringed song (Borre tu amor) was taken by Peermusic from Guillermo Venegas first and now from his heirs. And the judge decided not to put a stop to the thievery.

A twist to this is that ACEMLA kep all the money it collecte. According to their own theory as to how the ownership of the song was obtained, ACEMLA has the obligation to pay 1/2 of collected royalties with either the widow or the children of of Guillermo Venegas, depending of which lie as to how ownweship was obtained was true.  Judge Fuste did not touch the issue by hiding the facts

Overall, Fuste disregarded plaintiff's obvious right to a proper copyright infringement damage award. This is so because:
- ACEMLA licensed Sonolux and Sony for the production of CD records. Millions of copies were made.
- ACEMLA was paid royalties.

Note: Whatever copies of the 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.

Fuste totally ignored the violation of plaintiff's right to be the sole registrants of the songs they own.

Note: ACEMLA said in Peer vs, LAMCO (Perez Gimenez) that the SPACEM songs were in it's catalog by mistake. Some mistake!

Error: Fuste is nonchalant about an illegal appropriation.

Note: ACEMLA lawyer sent a motion to the court after the trial ended on 2-17-04 and before the sentence was issued to argue that the license to Banco Popular was for the entire catalog. Caro's motion is clear.... Banco Popular only used a few songs out of that catalog, a catalog that is fictitious and/or useless because it has never been issued or copie or maintained to licensees.

Note: Under ACEMLA own arguments ACEMLA had only a factional ownership of the song Genesis. In spite of this ACEMLA parties never shared any of the song's income with plaintiffs. It would also mean that in addition to sterling song rights, ACEMLA stole the income of the songs by keeping all the money. Strangely judge Fuste makes no mention of this fact in his opinion and gave no punishment. Any other judge would have scolded and punished ACEMLA for their fraudulent ways!

Note: The size of the ACEMLA catalog was never mentioned in the Fuste opinion, a strange omission.

The Peer allegation that "Plaintiffs’ claims of ownership were not adequately pled in Plaintiffs’ complaint" is nonsense since plaintiffs presented a copyright registration that covered all the song for which plaintiffs claimed ownership. The fact that there clear error and double registrations in our copyright can be traced to Peer failure to inform and the failure of the copyright system when searches were made at Copyright Office.

Note: The New York statute of limitations may not be applicable, because one of the parties, ACEMLA claimed the all the same songs (and still did during trial - see web page) and ACEMLA parties never agreed to a New York law stipulations or to any stipulation with plaintiffs, who never signed any agreement with ACEMLA.

See RESCISSION THEORY AND ERRORS below

Note: The assignment request by Peer in 1997 (see Fuste comment) is well documented on GVL Facts presented to the court on 12-19-03 by plaintiffs.

See RESCISSION THEORY AND ERRORS below

Error: In 1997  (see Fuste comment) Peermusic made plaintiffs an offer so plaintiffs would assign Peer rights to all the song they now claim and some they do not claim. If the rights to the music belonged to plaintiffs, why did plaintiffs need to file a lawsuit against Peer to rescind any assignments at that time? The only possible reason to request rescission then would have been that plaintiffs had to think that Peer was trying to trick plaintiffs or giving plaintiffs wrong information about the ownership and they would change their mind. But then plaintiffs had no reason to suspect any those possibilities - that Peer would backtrack and reclaim ownership.  If plaintiffs sued Peer for rescission in 1997 Peer would have said that they had recently proved that they considered plaintiffs owner, when they requested assignments and that the lawsuit was frivolous. Plaintiffs only concern then was to recoup unpaid royalties from Banco Popular, not worry about any ownership issue. It is during the lawsuit phase that Peermusic backtrack and reclaims the songs.  It would have been senseless for plaintiffs to ask for rescission under the comfortable belief  that plaintiffs were owners of all the songs, as confirmed by Peer itself. The basic facts around this request for assignments by Peer was presented at trial, therefore Fuste knew or should have known. A hypothesis as to why Peer backtracked is easy to develop. Once they were sued, they had a big problem because they did not own the songs.

Note: The assignment request by Peer in 1997 (see Fuste comment) is well documented on GVL Facts presented to the court on 12-19-03 by plaintiffs.

Error: My interpretation is that the songwriter contracts assign the songs to publishers for the length of time they perform as publishers by successfully promoting and exploiting the assigned songs.  Fuste goes to great length in discussing the issue, but misses the basic point. Clearly to rescind a contract on the basis of non performance during an old period of time only may be a problem if that time period of non performance is before the statute of limitations period. But if the non performance is within the statute of limitations period then it follows that the statute of limitation argument is ineffective. For example, Peer has not issued a license for a new recording for any of the non-PHAM songs within the last 6 years (to use NY statute of limitations). Therefore the contract may be rescinded for non performance. Same goes for non payment of royalties, my logic tells me.

Fuste's decision means that contracts cannot be rescinded if they are older than the statute of limitations. It sets the ambient for a contractor that has no intention of fulfilling contract obligations permanently will decide to fulfill the obligations only during the statue of limitations period. Then afterwards there is no way to the contract can be rescinded because the contract is older than the statute of limitations and the allegation will be that the rescission had to be requested during the statute of limitations period.

Error: New York contract law stipulates:

 §  202.  Cause  of  action accruing without the state. An action based upon a cause of action accruing without the state  cannot  be  commenced after the expiration of the time limited by the laws of either the state or the place without the state where the cause of action accrued, except that  where  the  cause  of action accrued in favor of a resident of the state the time limited by the laws of the state shall apply.

According to this the applicable limit is the 15 years under Puerto Rico law.

Taxes: According to the Fuste theory of statute of limitations if a person did not pay taxes for the last 20 years and the statute of limitations for that laws violation is 5 years, then the tax evader cannot be charged with anything because the evader commenced the violation over five years before. Additionally the evader does not have to pay any future taxes because the evader can never be charged with tax evasion. Peermusic's action of not paying royalties is an evasion of a fiduciary duty, just like not paying taxes.

See RESCISSION THEORY AND ERRORS below

Note: It is not until year 2000 that plaintiffs were declared owners of the rights by Puerto Rico courts and when plaintiffs made claims for payment of the Genesis income from Banco Popular plaintiffs were ignored. 

Any way this is a moot comment if Fuste knew his beans about rescission. See RESCISSION THEORY below

Fuste skipped the first and most important by far issue and goes to the second issue and cites a NY case that deals with the issue, a far less important issue and decides de rescission question with it.

In our case the non payment of royalties in this case is basically trivial because there was no royalty income from recording. So there was hardly anything to pay or reason to make a payment claim. It should be noted that after the 1997 assignment request from Peer (see Fuste comment) plaintiffs never asked about these royalties because plaintiffs did not expect any real money.... plaintiffs knew that very few Peer songs records were being sold (and plaintiffs thought that the Disco Hit license did no exists because Peer never replied to inquiries about it). Plaintiffs  were only interested in the money Peer collected from Banco Popular because plaintiffs though that many thousands of dollars had been collected (if a reasonable price had been charged). Regarding the non performance issue (records made/sold) plaintiffs had no concert because plaintiffs felt they were owners and did not have to litigate old issues that were going to lead nowhere economically.

So the non performance is due almost 100% to failure to perform in the music publishing business, not that it did not pay. For example, there are songs that never generated any income, be it from performance or mechanical. So the Peer defense could be that there was no payment because here none to be made. Certainly if GVL went to court requesting a rescission of assignment of the song Ausencia based on the non payment of royalties within a 6 year period after assigning the song, Peer would have said that there was no royalty payment because there was no income because no one recorded the song. The court, if were consistent with Fuste would tell GVL he had no right to rescission because he could not claim non payment when there was no payment to be made. Clearly a proposition that defies logic.

Then we must erroneously conclude erroneously that plaintiffs :
- never defended themselves in the Puerto Rico courts from the estate-executor 1997 pre-emptive lawsuit, after LAMCO was notified by GVL heirs it was going to be sued for copyright infringement.
- letter of  9-18-97 to ACEMLA and Luis Raul Bernad was never made.
- complaints (two) to the PR Supreme court never occurred.
- complaint to Puerto Rico Police Justice departments for theft of songs was never made.
- letter to ombudsman regarding police behavior mas never made.
- letter to governess was never made.
- complaint to FBI never was made.
- speeches at copyright conference with ACEMLA present was never made.
- a previous (corrupted) lawsuit at Arecibo court against ACEMLA was never made.
- lawsuit (this one) was never made.
- complaint to copyright registration were never made.
- never wrote to the press.
- press releases were never made.
- went on radio to denounce LAMCO paries claims of ownership.
- never participated on the Peer press conference made to denounce ACEMLA.
- never, personally and through legal representation  denounced  LAMCO parties claims of ownership at/with Banco Popular, Sony, Sonolux, Peermusic, Disco Hit, and others.
- etc.

Theory: Fuste's purpose in his comment is to justify the low damage (and non existent for most infringed songs) awards against ACEMLA. It is actually a lie made up by the judge himself.

Theory: Omissions made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing. Differnetly: A help to ACEMLA.

Note: Judge Fuste also overlooked the LAW fact that when he published his opinion the plaintiffs had, anyway, the right to rescind the contract through a Copyright Law process called termination and this made his decision not to rescing ACADEMIC. See Venegas letter to Peermusic from plaintiffs terminating all assignments. 

Comment:
See RESCISSION THEORY AND ERRORS below.

According to this theory if Peer took, 20 years ago a great, timeless song from an Argentina composer who had previously signed a blanket contract, "without the author suspecting" and registers that song at the Copyright office and adds that song to a list of songs in a two page document with no signature on the song list page, then a Peer claim of ownership  cannot be challenged and the song belongs to Peer.

Note: The assignment request by Peer in 1997  (see Fuste comment) is well documented on GVL Facts presented to the court on 12-19-03 by plaintiffs.

But a music publisher that looses their proof looses their rights. Put differently: The natural ownership of a copyright is the author or his successors. If a publishes claims ownership but claims that they cannot defend the ownership because the old guys died or the documents were lost, then the have lost whatever right they had, possibly by not insuring that the claims could survive time, fire, deaths, etc. This should not operate against the author or successor. It must operate against against a possible claimant (publisher) and not against a sure claimant, the composer, because the law says implicitly that the composer is the owner unless a written assignment shows otherwise. 

Fuste Opinion Page: 39-2
Fuste text: Second Circuit explained that, “rescission has been allowed . . . in cases in which a publisher has made none of the royalty payments.”
Error: The quote means that non payment is a reason for rescission. Peer has paid 0 percent in royalties royalties to plaintiffs in the last 11 years since death of GVL. Peer also admitted it has not paid for decades (33-14). So they have never paid royalties in the New York statutory limit period (last 6 years). The situation is so bad that Peer has not even returned the illegally collected royalties, when requested to do so so, royalties paid to Peer by Banco Popular for an illegal license Peer issued to Banco Popular.

Important: The non payment of royalties may have these elements which Fuste did not analyzed:
1. Non performance results in no income thus no payment.
2. There is income but it is not paid due to carelessness or fraud.

From 1997 to  present there is a good reason for Peer not to pay royalties: They were acting as if they did not own the songs and rightly were not promoting the songs. The fact that it later turned that the songs were still in BMI catalog and BMI was generating a little bit of royalties to Peer is because, as admitted by Peer, the do not notify BMI that they no longer control the works and it was Plaintiff that had to go to BMI to do that. The fact that Peer tried to gain control of the songs, as stated in the Peer facts and as stated by Rafael Venegas in testimony, is proof that songs were owned by plaintiffs.

Funny thing: Plaintiffs claimed that songs were performed on a Ponce radio station under an ACEMLA license, and  defendant ACEMLA did not controvert the claim, but Fuste decided there was proof of it so as to not find infringements against ACEMLA. Funny how Fuste's bias worked in the case. 

Note (July 2006): After the trial ended over, Peer has not paid or offered to pay the heirs of GVL any royalties for the 1993-2004 period (GVL death to date all songs assignments to Peer were terminated by GVL heirs in December 2004). 

Note:  The 1964 letter of agreement  (page 1 page 2) says that GVL returned $412.65, but that is on the unsigned page 1 of the letter and that was in 1964. This would mean that GVL was returning more money than what he received and would also mean that between 1952 and 1964 his songs earned a negative amount of money ($12.65) in royalties.

Conclusion: GVL and his successors could have terminated the agreement in its entirety at any time and that included the assignment of the songs. Note: GVL heir terminated the assignments in December of 2005 through a letter to Peer, just in case.

Error: In 1997 Peer asked plaintiffs, as owners, the purchase/assignment of all the songs Peer now claimed. The 1997 Peer offer meant that Plaintiffs were the owners.

Eror: Fuste's concusion that "Because we find that the foregoing contracts are binding" is bizarre, considering that Peer has completely not conformed to their contractual obligations in making the music assigned to them make money, and not making the required (by contrct) periodic royalty reports. See song earnings report here.

Fuste decision: Never registered songs belong to Peer because Peer "timely" registered them, Peer saved 
Error: 11 of the songs (Cariño; No vuelvas más; Ni a la distancia; Noche sin ti; Llega la noche; Recordación; Nada puedo hacer; Ausencia; No, no digas nada; Tu partida; No acepto olvido) songs were never copyright registered by Peer. These therefore could not have been included in a list of songs Peer owned in the original term, since there was no original copyright term for the songs. See unregistered songs were not, by Fuste, determined to belong to Peer.

Fuste decision: Stolen song belongs to Peer, Peer saved
Additionally the songs Borracho Sentimental (a song actually stolen from an unidentified songwriter) and Miedo were copyright registered in 1979 and 1981, respectively, and that is well over 25 years after the alleged assignment was made by Guillermo Venegas. It is an established fact that copyright registration made late for the purpose of increasing the duration of copyrights may be invalid or invalid as prima facie proof of ownership. Peer, incredibly  explained at the trial that the reason for the delays was precisely to extend the duration of the copyright. Essentially Peer doubled the copyright duration of these two songs by the very late filing for copyright. A clear abuse of copyright.

See 10 Sem-Torq, Inc. v. K Mart Corp., 936 F.2d 851, 854 (6th Cir. 1991) (where a work was first published in 1982 and the copyright was registered in 1988, the district court was not bound to accept the validity of the copyright)

It is very odd that judge Fuste uses ficticious, never really made any "timely or otherwise registrations" to reach the conclusion that a number of songs belong to Peer but makes no mention of these alleged timely registrations in his writing (so as not to question Peer's alleged ownership?).

Note: In another case (05-12-52 Brown v LAMCO) the same Mr. Fuste wrote:
"See 10 Sem-Torq, Inc. v. K Mart Corp., 936 F.2d 851, 854 (6th Cir. 1991) (where a work was first published in 1982 and the copyright was registered in 1988, the district court was not bound to accept the validity of the copyright)."
In the current case, Peermusic presented copyright for three songs, all published before 1953 and copyright registered by Peermusic over 17 (in 1969), 27(in 1979), and 29 (in 1981) years respectively. The problem being that Fuste accepted these registrations, prima facie, as valid because they were timely made. During trial Peermusic was asked why they took such a long time if the songs had been assigned to Peermusic in 1952. The reply was that that way Peermusic obtained a longer copyright duration (the writer believes this is a clearly illegal purpose, to trick the law).

Error: The so called irrevocable power of attorney is/was illegal (thus invalid/null/moot) in both Puerto Rico, New York and everywhere else because it was not notarized, as any lawyer would know.

Error: The so called valid (per the judge) contract that the judge refers to is a 1964 two page (Page 1Page 2) alleged agreement between Guillermo Venegas and Peer. But this agreement has two fatal flaws as evidence in favor of Peer:
a. By its own terms, the agreement requires the signature (acceptance) of Peer. The copy of the contract presented by Peer is not signed by anyone from Peer.
b. The document cnosist of two pages (Page 1Page 2). All the terms and song names are in page 1.That page is unsigned by Guillermo Venegas. Page two (Page 2)says nothing of an agreement and it is signed by Guillermo Venegas. Being that the letter was written by Peer on a Peer typewriter,  page one could have easily been changed, and since all the parties living in 1964, that could have seen the letter then are now dead, no one can certify that page one was not changed.
There is no evidence a copy of this contract was ever given to Guillermo Venegas and Peer proferred no evidence such a copy was ever delivered. It is also suspicious that a letter that fits perfectly well in one page was written using two pages.

Erorr: The song Amor dulce came into renewal period in 1998, after the death of the author. Thus it cannot belog to Peer because no valid assignment has been made to Peer after it came into the renewal priod by the heirs of the composer. Fuste ignored these facts. So regardless of the erred judge's decidsion, the song annot belog to Peer.

Error: Fuste wishes and is ingenious to believe everything a paper produced by Peer says is true. Therefore Borracho Sentimental belongs to Peer. He also believes Cariño and other songs belong to Peer because GVL gave Peer the rights, even though he did nor compose or own the songs. Note: Peer did nor show a score for Cariño (never copyrighted, recorded, performed, published or royalties paid in 40 plus years, all good reasons for beleiving that there is no such GVL song). We should note that attaching the name of GVL to songs hed did not compose are moral rights violations against the composer and his heirs. These violations went unnoticed during the trial.

(below)), Mas alla (not by GVL per Peer document 0676 - in  1387 (below)), Llega la noche (never copyrighted), Nada puedo hacer (never cpyrighted - in  1387 (below)), Noche sin ti (never copyrighted - in  1387 (below)),  Tu partida (never copyrighted - in  1387 (below)), songs Peer has never licensed, plaintiffs have never heard and suspect GVL did not write. But Fuste says they belong to Peer because GVL assigned them.

Note: If Peer ever send royalties to plaintiffs for Borracho Sentimental and plaintiffs take the money, plaintiffs may be contributory infringers with Peer if the real owner of the song shows up and makes a claim.

Error: Judge Fuste specifies each song that belongs to Peer but does not do the same for songs claimed by ACEMLA belong to plaintiffs. Why the different and discriminatory treatment?

Interesting and revealing: Fuste's most and all important decision, that the Peer claimed songs did belong to Peer is not supported by any cited jurisdiction to use the early contract period instead of the last contract period as reference to the 6 year New York statute of limitations issue.  Certainly there must be jurisprudence for a common legal situation that will come up anytime wants to rescind a business contract. This is a very weak and vulnerable issue for Peer considering that the issue was not argued one way or another and Fuste decided out of own volition and ERRED.

In the case it was evidenced (Peer doc  1387 (below)) that there may have been fraud. Fuste did not discuss the document in his decision.

Constitutional issue: By decreeing that Borracho Sentimental and other songs for which no proof was tendered that GVL wrote, Fuste is violating the constitutional rights (taking of property) of the real, yet unidentified owner.

Notes about another stolen song:
A new and bizarre twist to this story. Recently, after the trial, it was discovered that Peermusic stole another song from GVL. The song (Llega la noche buena) was really composed by GVL but Peer stole it and registere it as having been composed by Edmundo Disdier, who coincidentally had testified in the trial saying that Peer had stolen some of his songs also. In a recent royalty report Peermusic paid the equivalent of the royalties of two records (14 cents) to Disdier although about 10,000 records were produced. The real earning of the songs (royalties plus interests) could be well over one million dollars, none of which ever was paid to GVL. An interesting thing is that the Peermusic license requests from the record producer (of the record with the alleged Disdier song) that they not report the number of records produced in their royalty statements!  This is unusually strange, bizarre, since a basic data requirement with any recording royalty statement is the number of record produced and without that number there is no way of knowing if the right royalties are being paid. After all royalties are calculated by multiplying the number of records produced by the royalty rate. It is as if Peer put a clause in the license saying "go ahead and rip me and Disdier off". This looks real bad, it is BORRACHO SENTIMENTAL all over again.

Peer has alleged that the information that Disdier composed the song was provided by a record company, not Mr. Disdier himself. This means that Peer got the song from the record producer and not the composer. And all along it was thought that it was the composer who assigned songs to publishers! This is as bizzare as it can get!

Since Peer has never divulged how and from whom they obtained the name of the song BORACHO SENTIMENTAL, a good guess now is that Peer obtained the name and the song from the record producer (and not GVL) who mistakenly thought the composer was GVL.

Error: Fuste's action constitutes de-facto forfeiture. Forfeiture is unconstitutional as it is, and attempting to subject private property to forfeiture for a civil action is beyond unconstitutional in nature. HINT: FORFEITURE MEANS YOUR PROPERTY HAS BEEN  TAKENAWAY WITHOUT OR IMPROPER (AS IN THIS CASE) DUE PROCESS OF LAW, AND YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH YEARS OF COURT PROCEDURE TO GET IT BACK, EVEN IF YOU ARE THE REAL LEGAL OWNER. 

Opinion of the author: No person can be denied the right to revocate a power of attorney, let alone if the holder of that power turned out to be a corrupt.

So the so called songs listed on the contracts are just two of the 22 songs Peer alleged to own.
So for 20 songs Peer could not have renewal rights unless the 1964 document Peer wrote and has tried to pass as a GVL letter and written concurrently with the "without the author suspecting" letter is taken as a valid contract. The 1964 letter has no Peer signature, so it cannot be a contract between Peer and GVL. More here.

Addtionally the so call grant of renewal rights is illegal.
States copyright attorney Ivan Hoffman at http://www.ivanhoffman.com/termination.html states 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.".

Additionally, the renewal rights to the song TU BIEN LO SABES (allegedly assigned to Peer by GVL in 1970) accrued after the composer died, in 1998, so if anyone could grant those rights, it was not the composer, but the heirs of the composer. This is copyright basics that the Judge did not understand.

The Peer Copyright Duration Trick: In trial Peer stated that the reason for their inaction in not registering the song was that this was a "trick" used by Peer to extend the copyright life of songs. Let us call this the "duration trick".Clearly that was a lie (perjury) because Peer was obliged to publish the songs (a prequesitive to be able to exploit the songs, if sheet music is not made available, not publishe, then no recordings and public performances are possible) and before 1978 publishing of songs without a copyright registration meant that the works would pass to the pubic domain, where all copyrights would be lost. Also the use of tricks to extend the life of copyrights as stated by Peer would deny the GVL heirs the rights to renewals and that is illegal. It is obviously clear that the use of tricks to extend copyright life is contrary to the intention of the copyright law that clearly specified the duration of copyrights. Nowhere in the law does it sasy that duration can be extended through tricks.

The Peer Duration Trickis clearly a form ofcopyright overclaiming more than what the Copyright Act gives, a form of copyright misuse, which could result in forfeiture of the copyrights. 

Then the question is why did Peer not use the "duration trick" on all the songs? Because it is illegal. See "eternal rights here". 

See here: AUSENCIA: A SONG NOT ASSIGNED AND ASSIGNED FOR 111 (OR 128) YEARS TO PEERMUSIC?

Error: The judge swallowing of the Peer perjurious "Peer copyright duration trick" story line as explained above.
Error: These songs never has a copyright initial term and Fuste said that the songs belonged to Peer in the initial term. See Fuste Opinion Page: 42-11.

Note: A reason Peer could not copyright register the songs was that they never obtained a score and needed additional information from GVL because of their "get the songs without the author suspecting" method of acquiring songs. Fuste did not get it right.

Error: But prior to saying this, Fuste says that the filings (for the aformentioned songs) were never made. See Fuste Opinion Page: 45-5. So to say that Peer is the current owner is misleding statement because the aformentioned songs include songs that were named never had timely filing for renewal. A clear contradition and error used to justify an alleged ownership decreed by the judge.

Actually these songs did not have any copyright registrations, renewal or otherwise, at all: AUSENCIA,  CARIÑO, LLEGA LA NOCHE, NADA PUEDO HACER, NI A LA DISTANCIA. NO ACEPTO OLVIDO, NO, NO DIGAS NADA, NO VUELVAS MAS. NOCHE SI TI. RECORDACION, TU PARTIDA. 

Anyway the above means that, per Fuste, only songs that were timely filed for renewal may belong to Peer. This would leaves the ownership of at least the unregistered songs as not belonging to Peer.

BTW: The lack of a Peer registration a song means that no one was put on “constructive notice” of Peers claims to ownership, including the GVL heirs. So when the GVL heirs registered the songs under their own name and assigned rights to GVL Inc. they did it legally, as Peer did not put anyone on constructive notice of their claims. 

See Perez Gimenez at PEER INTERNATIONAL CORP. et al., v. LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC CORP., et al.,
No. 97-2875 (PG). United States District Court, D. Puerto Rico. Aug. 14, 2001.:
"and (2) plaintiffs' registration of copyrights put defendant on constructive notice of prior assignment.".
Meaning: Certain songs did not belong to LAMCO because Peer had registered them before, and therby put LAMCO on constructive notice that Peer claimed ownership of the songs and therefore assignments to LAMCO were invalid. 

Error: But many of the songs were acquired without the author suspecting and Fuste ignores that.. Document  1387 (below) is never cited in the opinion. Incredible. And how about "timely filing for the original copyright period". As Fuste says (Fuste Opinion Page: 45-8), Peer did not publish or register these 10 songs: Ausencia * ; Cariño*; Llega la noche*; Nada puedo hacer*; Ni a la distancia*; Noche sin ti*; No acepto olvido*; No, no digas nada*; and No vuelvas más*. Now Fuste says they belong to Peer because of Peer's timely filing. BUT THE FILING NEVER OCURRED.

* These songs are in the "withot the author suspecting letter". In that letter these  five other songs are also named and were copyright registered by Peer: Amor mi dilce amor, Borracho sentimental, Tu partida, Recordacion, Miedo. Theory: Peer found recordings from sources other than Guillermo Venegas for these five songs but not the others.

As a result of these no registration, if assignments were made in 1952 as claimed by Peermusic, Peermusic obtained the assignments for 111 years (1952 to 2063), something unheard of before, while the most allowed by law was 28 years on a first term assignment and 28 years if the second term (renewal) was also assigned when renewal period arrived. See the analysis for AUSENCIA here.

Note on the eternal copyright: Peermusic alleges that they retain world rights for songs that have returned to GVL heirs for the renewal period under the theory that renewal rights are valid in the United States only. Then since the United States specified copyright (renewal) duration period is also valid in the United States only, Peermusic thus claims to own songs for an eternal copyright period, a clealy illegal claim. An extension of this theory, that all copyright duration periods under United States laws only applies to the United States territory and not elsewhere. Thus Peermusic has eternal copyrights of american and puertorican (such a Genesis by GVL) songs outside of the United States but which can then be licensed back in the United States from a foreign country.

World rights: A note about renewal rights period "for the rest of the world only". The renewal copyright period exists because American law created it. The law attaches some condition to this period, one being that the song returns to the composer or the composer heirs. Peermusic, evidently, likes the part about the existence of the period but does not like the part that the rights revert to the original owner of the heirs for the period. Peer accepts that the period exists but does not accept that the period belongs to the author or the author heirs. Very foxy and deceitful. Like taking the part of a law you like and not discarding the part of the law that you dislike.

The Mexico Hymn (Himno Nacional Mexicano) story and World Rights:
Peermusic claims in the trial that it was the founder and the owner of Promotora Hispanoamericana de Music (PHAM), a music publisher in Mexico. While this  contradicts information found on the Internet that says that PHAM was found by the founder of Televisa, Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta, it seems clear that Peermusic and PHAM have collaborated as partners in publishing and stealing of rights and/or royalties. See how royalties were stolen here by Peermusic and PHAM. In the Peermusic tradition PHAM claims to own, and has sub publishers to enforce that ownership, of the MEXICO NATIONAL ANTHEM. So to play the Mexico national anthem on a Mexican diplomatic activity in the U.S.A. permission from a music publisher or BMI is needed, else the music may not be performed. The civil society of Mexico is fuming over this, the American copyright law gone crazy.

The lyrics for Himno Nacional Mexicano was written by poet Francisco Gonzales Bocanegra (1824-1861) and the music byJaime Nuno Roca (1825-1908). The hymn was first performed in 1854. While the song is surely in the public domain, the song is registered in the BMI reprtoire (BMI work 5688 79) even though it is illegal to license and profit works that are in the public domain. But the problem is deeper. The BMI repertoire is licensed in Mexico by Sociedad De Autores Y Compositores De Música, who within their licenses issued in Mexico include the ASCAP repertoire which includes Himno Nacional Mexicano. Thus the Himno Nacional Mexicano is licensed (for payment) in Mexico by ASCAP through Mexico by Sociedad De Autores Y Compositores De Música. That is also ilegal, under Mexico law, as well as morally wrong.

Robbing the Mexicans Hymn to exploit it commercially is wrong and is nothing more than greed and stupidity.
This is the use given to the so called "world rights" just like the ones claimed by Peermusic.

Note: If authorization were not infringement, then if Peermusic or ACEMLA authorized a foreign record producer the copying of a GVL song (owned by the children of GVL) then there would be no infringement by Peermusic or ACEMLA and since the actual copying was abroad, the GVL children would have no practical remedy for the obvious infringement caused by Peermusic or ACEMLA illegal authorization. Clearly illegal authorization is infringement.

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

Note: Judge Fuste did not read the lawsuit, which was about the damange that the defendants may have done to plaintiffs while falsely posing as owners in the marketplace, thereby destroying the marketability of the music of Guillermo Venegas. A simple reading of the lawsuit will reveal this. t  See claimed damages here.  See lawsuit here. Because Judge Fuste did not read the lawsuit he ended awarding damanges for an alleged copyright infringement by ACEMLA when in fact ACEMLA never made any copyright infringement (copy or perform without authorization).

Note on Beneficial Owner: During the trial Rafael Venegas said that the children of GVL were "beneficial owners" of the songs under the assumption that Peermusic was the legal owner of the songs. Peemusic's lawyer Barry Slotnick commented that he had never hear of the theory of "beneficial owner". Section 501 of the copyright act:
(b) The legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled, subject to the requirements of section 411, to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it. 

Missing; and elsewhere. Fuste is supporting, without saying so, the Peer position that they own the world rights to Genesis and the other PHAM songs.

A point here: if authorizing is not infringement then when ACEMLA authorized Sonolux for the manufacture of records, they were not infringing yet our right to authorize such recording to profit from it. But when ACEMLA licensed Sonolux, Sonolux was not interested in getting a license from plaintiffs and then paying plaintiffs royalties..

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

Interesting: For the identical situation with ACEMLA, Fuste says on page 75-7that there was "probable" peformance.
Why is Peer treated differently?

Interesting: Peer contradicted itself on the issue of "is authorization" infringement?

Update: As of April 8, 2005 Peermusic is still authorizing the use of Genesis in Puerto Rico through ASCAP because the song is still listed in the ASCAP repertoire and its Internet database. It is alleged by ASCAP that the song is there because Peermusic claims rights for foreign countries, the problem being that the Internet database has no flag to indicate that and the so called foreign rights are a mere fabrication of Peermusic and do not exist. See renewal "world rights" for more information about these fabricated and non existent rights.

Plaintiffs have failed to controvert Peer Defendants’ evidence, or suggest how they made their own calculation. We have reviewed Peer Defendants’ exhibits, and find that their calculation is substantially correct. We, therefore, adopt Peer Defendants’ proffered calculation of $1,038.91 as Plaintiffs’ actual damages for the licensing of the BPPR license.
Errors: 
1. Plaintiffs only learned of Peer's infringement action in October of 1997 at which time they were barred from suing Peer because of a separate lawsuit, where one of LAMCO parties (Chavez) was claming ownership of the song Genesis (and all of Venegas songs). That case was solved in mid 2000 and Peer was sued in February 2001.
2. If Fuste at no tie says how much Peer says they received from Banco Popular performance (which elsewhere he denies occurred). Logic says that Peer should have informed how much they charged Banco Popular for the performance of Genesis and that he should have questioned Plaintiff's attorney where he obtained the $3,209.40  that Fuste claims he was given. After all courts should not routinely allow the presentation of fictitious data.
3. Any license issued to BPPR by Peer was a plain violation of a territorial clause in a song assignment contract (to Mexicn publisher allegedly owned by Peermusic, Promotora Hispanoamericana de Musica - PHAM) signed by Guillermo Venegas. The judges did not mention the contract violation in his Order, so as not to award damages for a contract violation.

Error: 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.

The amazing Fuste Peermusic damages

Fuste Opinion Page: 64-10
Fuste text:We, therefore, adopt Peer Defendants’ proffered calculation of $1,038.91 as Plaintiffs’ actual damages for the licensing of the BPPR license. 
Error: No proof of how much Peer charged BPPR for the performance and the subsequently produced phonorecords was presented. Also, if Peer charged BPPR only $1,038.91 (ACEMLA charged BPPR $43,000 for the same performance) in 1993 then, with interests the amount would increase to about $2,500, but Fuste wrongly used the lower amount. 

Error: This is what the law says about damages:
The copyright owner may elect “at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual
damages and profits, an award of statutory damages.” See 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1).

But these are the facts:
Plantiffs were never asked to choose betweem actual damages or statutory damages. Fuste chose "actual damages" for them. Judge Fuste violated the law by not allowing plaintifs to elect between actual or statutory damages. If plaitiffs had elected one or the other, that should have been stated on the order by Fuste.

Clearly the so called "Peer Defendants’ proffered calculation of $1,038.91" did not include the damages suffered by plaintiffs as a result of it's inability to market the song Genesis because of the markeplace confusion when more than one party claim ownership of a song. Clearly Peer ilegally claimed ownership of the song Genesis for many years, causing incalculable damages which are very likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Among the damages are that Banco Popular sued plaintiffs (on a separate case) as a result of an ilegal license issued by defendant Peer and plaintiffs have already spent more money on that case tnat the pitty $5,000 award in damages received from Judge Fuste. 

Error: Clearly the judge did not read the opinion he signed, that says that the damages resulting from the Peermusic to Banco Popular illegal license ($1,038.91) are the results from the unrelated Peermusic to BMG illegal license infringement income of $1,038.91. That the two amounts of money earned by Peer for two separate infringements (BMG and Banco Popiular licenses) are identical is an incredible error (r is it?). 

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,

Clearly if fuste had really analyzed the actual costs in damages for Peemusics license to BPPR, he would have come up with a totally different amount, over  $39,000 (See data here).

Additionally the indicated error, the decision that Peermusic infringed defendants rights when it licensed BMG is counter to the same judge's descion that ACEMLA parties are part owners of the infringed song after 1999. If ACEMLA parties were really owners of the song, the infringement could not be counted by the judge, since a cause of action in the BMG license infringement by Peermusic requred that ACEMLA be a party to the lawsuit against Peermusic and it wasn't. Strangely the judge did not see this and more strangely, neither Peermusic nor ACEMLA protested. Something that is so in plain sight!

Note: Additionally this decision, that Peermusic infringed defendants rights when it licensed BMG is counter to the same judge's descion that ACEMLA partiea are part owners of the infringed song after 1999. If ACEMLA parties were really owners of the song, the infringement could not be counted by the judge, since a cause of action in the BMG license infringement by Peermusic requred that ACEMLA be a party to the lawsuit against Peermusic and it wasn't.

Of course, Fuste could have very logically awarded the maximum of $150,000 statutory damage in favor of plaintiffs, simply because Peer made the worst type of infringement, acting as owner and telling both BPPR and plaintiffs it was the owner when in fact it was not and wahtever license was issued to BPPR was illegal. By deceitfully acting as owner illegally, Peer actually prevented plaintiffs from using their right of ownership. So Peer deceived and misled both BPPR and plaintiffs and it cost them nothing (per Fuste, Peer pays plaintiffs what Banco Popular paid Peer). Why, Fuste, why were you so in favor of Peer and biased against plaintiffs???

The amazing Fuste BPPR blunder and contradiction
An amazing blunder by Judge Fuste: Elsewhere Fuste says elsewhere that he awards no damages against ACEMLA for the BPPR (Banco Popular de Puerto Rico) use of the song Genesis, because allegedly, he was not convinced the song was actually used and sung by Lucecita (even though 1/2 the population of Puerto Rico saw it. Fuste said that "Plaintiffs have not persuasively shown that BPPR actually performed Génesis or any of GVL’s songs during the time period.". But here Fuste takes a different approach. He says Peer accepts they were paid $1,038.91 for the use of the song Genesis, meaning that both Peermusic and ACEMLA admit to being paid for the performance of the song Genesis, but, incredibly a small damage are given for the illegal Peer licensing but not for the illegal ACEMLA licensing, for which ACEMLA received about $43,000. 

A note: Banco Popular admitted in a separate lawsuit (01-cv-1142..see results in favor of Venegas here), filed in the same court, in January 2001,  that they used the song Genesis in two television special programs twice, in 1993 and in 1999 and both programs resulted in the sale of phonorecords. For both uses of Genesis ACEMLA was paid and plaitiffs (the song owners) Venegas heirs were not paid at all.

The amazing Fuste Peermusic damages logic
So Peer says they received $1,038.91 from BPPR for the use of the song Genesis. And, says Fuste, the damages should be calculated using that figure. But simple logic says that plaintiffs (the Venegas heir) could have earned much more than that if they, instead of Peermusic, had licensed BPPR. Perhaps BPPR would have paid $43,00 just as they paid that amount for an ilegal license from ACEMLA for the same song and the same use. Was your frienship with Peer lawyer Besosa (now a judge in your court) a deciding factor? If not, Fuste, please explain what you were thinking. Certainly no one will understand.

Note: 3 years later (Nov, 2007): Theree years after Fuste's order, Peer continues to infringe the song Genesis by licensing the song through ASCAP and by not stopping the production of infringing recordings, such as the BMG (now Sony BMG) recordings of En vivo Desde Carniege Hall, a record illegally licensed by Peer nd still widely sold. The reason for this is, obviously Peer's reckless disregard for the law and the extremely low damage award of judge Fuste. The award had zero built in deterrence. We suspect but only Fuste knows why he did what he did for Peer and/or his now judicial coleague Francisco Besosa (Peer's lawyer).

Note: Per plaintiff Maria, a Peer employee and witness said at trial that plaintiffs failure to make the requested assignments meant that Peer could no longer do business with the songs.

See RESCISSION THEORY AND ERRORS blow.

Also, Judge Fuste never presented the actual damages he cites. The amount of money received by Peer, with interests added is estimated to be far greater, greater than $39,000. A letter from Peer in 1997 says it had sent to Peermusic "affiliate" PHAM $3,209 for royalties collected for Genesis. On the other hand Peermusic case documents say that Peer was to retains from 75 to 87 percent of the royalties, so that if $3,209 was sent to PHAM, over $16,000 had been collected. If interests (10 %, compound) are added, the amount is in excess of $39,000. This $39,000 does not include additional money that Peer illegally received. Per Fuste, in lieu of $39,000 Peer received less than $2,000 (accepting information stated by Peermusic as good), a figure used to justify the ridiculous amount of $5,000 he awarded plaintiffs.

Note: Peer never gave plaintiff a copy of the license it issued to Banco Popular in 1993, so there is no knowledge of how much money Peer received initially from Banco Popular. Of course we know of Peer's pattern of hiding documents and Peer's theory that plaintiffs had no right to information. This license to Banco Popular is just another document hidden by Peer.

Additionally, the money received by the other defendant, ACEMLA-LAMCO ($60,000) for the use of the song Genesis constitutes a loss of income that is attributable to Peer, because of Peer's false claim of rights Banco Popular did not attempt to get a license from plaintiffs in the first instance, when the song was used and recorded (it got it from Peer) and then got a second license from ACEMLA-LAMCO, who also did not have the rights to the song. When these $60,000, plus interests are added to the previously mentioned $39,000 we have $99.000 in actual damages, an amount that is probable very short of the amount in the sealed envelope of probably millions of dollars. 

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies

Notes:
a. The phonomechanical products illegally licensed by Peermusic to Banco Popular were still being sold at the tiem of the trial. Therefore the Peer infringement for distribution was an ongoing one and was current.
b. The illegal license issued to BMG in 2001 alone justified a $150,000 statutory damage award in view of Peemusic position of knowingly continuing to issue ilegal licenses, not responding to to BMG request for an explanation, not withdrawing the illegal license to BMG and the fact that BMG was still selling infringing records when the case was being heard. Interesting: Judge Fuste did not order Peermusic to rescind the illegal license it issued to BMG. No one has stopped the infringement, still ongoing.
c. The above figure of 75 to 87 per cent retention of royalties by Peermusic is a an abuse and a violation of the assignment conditions, which alloed only for a 50 percent retention. Actually it is theft.
d. The scheme by Peermusic was simple: It retained about 75 to 87 percent of the royalties it collected illegally in the U.S. and sent the rest of the royalties to its affiliate in Mexico, PHAM. There PHAM retained the rest of the royalties, so that none of the money ever reached the final destination, the composer or his heirs. This did not bother or was considered by Judge Fuste.

A small comparison to show absurdity of Fuste award
A few days before the trial, Fuste awarded a $15,000 damage award against El Vocero newspaper, for using a surfing photograph without an amateur photographer's permission. 
Did El Vocero license others to use the photograph? No.
Did El Vocero reduce or limit the use of the photograph by the photographer? No.
Did El Vocero fraudeulently claim ownership of the photograph? No.
Does the taking of a surfing photograph requires artistic talent? No.
Was the photograph a famous one? No.
Was the photograph's market destroyed by El Vocero actions? No. There was no market.
Was the photographer a well known photographer? No.
Photographs used: 1
Number of times photo was used: 1
Did infringement stop: yes
Award: $15,000

Now compare these answers to these questiony would be for the actions of Peer in licensing Genesis to Banco Popular for a television "special" and to BMG for a recording:
Did Peer license others to use the song Genesis? Yes.
Did Peer  reduce or limit the use of the song by the real owners? Yes.
Did Peer  fraudeulently claim ownership of the song? Yes. 
Does the making a song like Genesis artistic talent? Yes.
Was the song a famous one? Yes.
Was the song's market destroyed by Peer actions? Yes.
Was the author of the song a well known composer? Yes.
Songs used (stolen is a better word): Many
Number of times song was used: thousands of times *
Did infringement stop: no **
Award: $5,000

* each time a license was issued that included the song for broacasting (ASCAP).
** Per has never notified any licensee to stop usage of song licensed by them. 

Error: The records (CD's) were made by Sonolux and ACEMLA was paid $67,912 (page 27-1) in royalties to ACEMLA, The amount paid to ACEMLA means that over 1,000,000 records were manufactured by an illegal authorization (as determined by Fuste himself) of ACEMLA and in the end Fuste did not find any infringement by ACEMLA.

Clealy Fuste lied so as not to find copyright infringement.

Note: Because of ACEMLA illegally claimed to own the songs recorded by Sonolux and Sony, and the subsequent collection of royalties from these recording companies by ACEMLA, the plaintiffs (heirs of GVL) estimate that they have not been able to collect royalties for over 5 million records and over 1 million dollars in royalties (plus interest).  Strange: this one million dollar loss was turned into a zero dollars damage award by Judge Fuste.

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

Fuste Opinion Page: 72-4
Fuste text: In both cases, Plaintiffs have not provided evidence that Defendant LAMCO’s license resulted in the copyrighted works’ use during the prescribed limitations period.
Error: The so called prescribed limitations period does not exists. The Copyright Act says

No civil action shall be maintained under the provisions of this title unless it is commenced within three years after the claim accrued.

This means that after the infringement has ended, assuming there is no tolling and the copyright holder knows of the infringement, the copyright holder has three years to file a claim. In the present case the infringement had not ended (Sony/Sonolux were producing records when the present lawsuit was filed) and there was tolling because plaintiffs were barred (and tolling kicks in) from suing LAMCO parties, as a member of the LAMCO parties has a lawsuit against plaintiffs (claiming song ownership) and that case ended in mid 2000, less than a year before this lawsuit was files.

Error: Judicial perjury by Fuste, because Fuste says on page 22-1 that ACEMLA returned a payment of $67,912)  payment to Sonolux. Clearly the Sonolux payment was proof they manufactured infringing records and continued to do so for a long time after this sentence was issued by Fuste (as of 2007 the infringing records are still being sold in stores and the Internet by the Sony-Sonolux partnership).

Strange: In a sparate case Sony alleges that they made records under license from LAMCO, therefore they acted in good faith.

Error: The records (CD's) were made by both Sony and Sonolux and ACEMLA was paid $67,912 in royalties to ACEMLA (see page 27-1, The amount paid to ACEMLA means that about 1,000,000 records were manufactured by an illegal authorization (as determined by Fuste himself) of ACEMLA and in the end Fuste did not find any infringement by ACEMLA.

Error: Proof was presented that ACEMLA licensed radio stations during the period. It is also absurd to talk about the prescribed period in the case since there is no prescribed period because of tolling. 

Error: ACEMLA never produced any documents during discovery or at trial that would prove that ACEMLA returned the $67,912 to Sonolux or Sony. So there is only an Bernard (ACEMLA) statement at trial to the effect that the money was returned.... but Bernard is a chronic liar and Fuste should have realized that.... it is so obvious.

Perhaps we should object on appeal the information of Fuste that the money was returned.

Note: Because of ACEMLA illegally claimed to own the songs recorded by Sonolux and Sony, and the subsequent collection of royalties from these recording companies by ACEMLA, the plaintiffs (heirs of GVL) estimate that they have not been able to collect royalties for about 10 million records and over 1 million dollars in royalties (plus interest).  Strange: this one million dollar loss was turned into a zero dollars damage award by Judge Fuste..

Also ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies
Theory: Omission (not finding infringement) made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing.

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

Error: This statement is contrary to the law. See here.
Also, from simple logic, authorization by a non owner of the rights is a far worse and damaging infringement than an actual performance infringement because the only real right of the owner is the authorization and authorization is s clsim of ownership. The Fuste erred decision eliminated the infringement by Chavez and LAMCO of 197 songs which plaintiffs have copyright registered. Additional infringements by Peer were also erased by the Fuste erred interpretation of the law.

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

Error: For lack of evidence it must be stated that there is no such thing as a ACEMLA catalog nor is there a catalog for a 1993 to 1998 period. Perjury?

Note: On May 21, 2009 the widow said in a deposition that the Puerto Rico courts did not decide about the ownership of the music because it had no jurisdiction because that was a federal issue. Clearly the big lie of defendants LAMCO ACEMLA parties and Fuste continues. 

Note: Because of ACEMLA parties (this inclides the GVL estate executor Chavez-Butler) illegally claimed to own the songs recorded by Sonolux and Sony, and the subsequent collection of royalties from these recording companies by ACEMLA, the plaintiffs (heirs of GVL) estimate that they have not been able to collect royalties for about 10 million records and over 1 million dollars in royalties (plus interest).  Strange: this one million dollar loss was turned into a zero dollars damage award by Judge Fuste..

Interesting: LAMCO parties that committed these separate proven infringements:

Chavez:    206 infringements: Giving rights to ACEMLA and to LAMCO to 206 copyrighted songs.
ACEMLA: 206 infringements: licensing the 206 copyrighted songs to radio stations and Banco Popular.
LAMCO: 80 infringements: Registering 80 copyrighted songs at copyright
               office and licensing the song Genesis to Banco Popular.
LAMCO:   2 infringements: Licensing two  copyrighted songs to Sonolux and Sony
LAMCO:   1 Infringement:licensing the song Genesis to Banco Popular   .

Total infringements: 495
Awards by Fuste: 1.

Theory: Omission made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing.

Additionally here was the Vicarious Liability of those that induced the executrix Chavez Butler to make te illegal transaction of passing the rights to the songs to LAMCO and ACEMLA: Jose Lacomba, Luis Raul Bernard. No damages were set for these (Chavez, Brnard, Lacomba) by the judge. Note: The actual number of songs infringed is not really 206, but over 600 songs, most of which are not copyright registered yet, and registration is required to prove infringement.

We repeat, no infringement (direct, vicarious or contributory) was found for defendants Chavez, Bernard, ACEMLA (separate corpotation from LAMCO or Lacomba. The Judge does not explain why he decided not to find these persons as infringers. Jurisprudence has it that on cases where may arties are found to have infringed, all parties are made to pay for their infringement, wether direct, vicarious or contributory,

These are the (statutory damages) options the judge had assuming there were 701 infringements and the statutory damages limits are $700 to $1,400 when the infringement is intentional:
Minimum damages : 495 x $1400    = $693,000.00
Maximum damages: 495 x $150,00 = $74,250,000
The judge awarded $16,363.47 (money paid by Banco Popular and not defendant). This 2.4 percent of the minimum allowd by law. 

From another case, Venegas vs. Sonolux, United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit, Case June 7, 2004: "...if a plaintiff proves that two different defendants each committed five separate infringements of five different works, the plaintiff is entitled to ten awards....".

Note: Note: Because of ACEMLA parties (this inclides the GVL estate executor Chavez-Butler)  illegally claimed own (a nice wording for stealing) all the songs composed by GVL and pre-emptively sued the GVL heirs in local courts, in 1997, to claim the ownership there, the heirs had to defend their rights to the songs in that lawsuit, so additional damages were made by ACEMLA parties. These damages (actual legal costs) are an aditional, estimated $40,000. This was not considered at all by Judge Fuste ay all. It never hapenned.

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies

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

Note: Eventually, in another case ACEMLA was ordered to pay the Venegas siblings for the same act obvious that Fuste refused to recognized so as to help ACEMLA. In that case the judge said:

See this 7-21-10 Opinion and Order. 

The above raises the following question: Who lied to Fuste so that Fuste could say that there was no proof of actual performance, or was the lie made up by Fuste himself?  We must believe that Fuste made up the lie himself, since if the lawyers for ACEMLA-LAMCO and the Venegas both told him a lie (that Genesis was not performed in the 1993 Banco Popular program), that there was no actual performance Fuste should not have accepted obvious lies as the truth.

Another Fuste lie: ACEMLA licensed entire catalog.
Fuste Opinion Page: 74-17
Fuste text: "Defendant LAMCO admits having received $260,432.10 in performance royalties for Defendant LAMCO’s catalog spanning the 18 period of 1993 through 1998."
Error: That the ACEMLA license retroactively included all the songs in the ACEMLA catalog. It is senseless that Banco Popular would pay $260,000 for the entire catalog when it had only used a few songs in the licensed period. This defies simple logic. This allows an accounting gimmick so that only $17 were for the use of the song Genesis in a television special and the performance in the taped program for several years.

With this statement and the Fuste "probable" (page 75-5) statement (that because Genesis was licensed to Banco Popular, if it was licensed it was probably performed) then plaintiffs can say that all many thousands of songs were probably performed by Banco Popular. Absurd.

Proof Genesis was performed per Peer facts:
 

Proof Genesis was performed: It was admitted by ACEMLA in their pretrial motion of  2-17-04, which apparently Fuste did not read or decided to overlook. ACEMLA said:

Note: Eventually, in another case ACEMLA, the court determined on 7-21-10 that the license issued by ACEMLA was really for just 6 songs, not the ACEMLA catalog. See this 7-21-10 Opinion and Order. 

Note: If LAMCO's claim that the license was for an entire catalog of 15,000 songs had any validity, then the payment per song would be a $17.36, a ridiculous figure for the use of a major song (Genesis) in a Banco Popular program. 

More on Banco Popular money split and award of 7-21-10.

But there is more: A tape recording of the event was presented as evidence. The tape recording of the event is a tape being sold by Banco Popular and for which $18,000 in royalties were paid to ACEMLA and was the basis for the $16,000 in damages awarded to plaintiffs. So a tape of the performance by Lucecita was made, the tape was evidence in the trial, the tape's royalties were paid and the judge says that "Plaintiffs have not persuasively shown that BPPR actually performed Génesis". Total judicial recklessness by judge Fuste, so as not to award additional damages to plaintiffs from ACEMLA. Strange, for the same performace illegally licensed by Peermusic, Fuste takes another and contradictory apprach. For Peermusi Fuste says accepts that Banco Popular used the song. See here, and here.

Worse yet: Evidence was presented that Banco Popular paid $260,000 to ACEMLA for the infringing performance of six songs, including plaintiff's song (Genesis) on television which Fuste said was not persuasively shown that it took place. So $43,000 was paid for the performance of a song and Fuste was not persuade it ever took place or that the $43,000 actually paid should have belonged to plaintiffs as damage. An incredible Fuste decision. BTW, most puertorricans saw the Banco Popular television program in question and heard Lucecita sing Genesis, as it was reported to be the most watched program ever up to that time and the Lucecita performance of Genesis was the highlight of the program according to many. We repeat. elsewhere Fuste said that the performance did take place.

But here is the more incredible part: Jose A. Fuste awarded $16,000 in damages to plaintiffs because ACEMLA parties received that same amount from Banco Popular as royalty payment for the store sale of a video of theBanco Popular 1993 television special. One would think that Fuste was smart enough to realize that if the video of a television program included the performance of Genesis by Lucecita for which Banco Popular paid $16,000 in royalties for the song Genesis, paid to ACEMLA, then then absolutely surely Lucecita did sing the song Genesis in the 1993 television program. Believe it or not Fuste stated in his opinion "Plaintiffs have not persuasively shown that BPPR actually performed Génesis" so as to make sure that plaintiffs were not awarded at least the $43,000 which Banco Popular paid ACEMLA for the performance. Certainly Jose A. Fuste had his mind set againt plaintiffs.

Of course, Fuste could have very logically awarded the maximum of $150,000 statutory damage in favor of plaintiffs, simply because ACEMLA made the worst type of infringement, acting as owner and telling BPPR and the entire music industry it was the owner when in fact it was not. By deceitfully acting as owner illegally, ACEMLA actually prevented plaintiffs from using their right of ownership. So ACEMLA deceived and misled both BPPR and the music industry and destroyed plaintiff possibility of expliting their property for many years and it actually profited from the transaction (received $60,000 in 1999 and had to pay plaintiffs $16,000 in 2004). Why, Fuste, why were you so in favor of ACEMLA and so biased against plaintiffs???

But there is more: On January 31, 2001 BANCO POPULAR sued Peer, ACEMLA (case 01cv1142, JudgesJuan Perez Gimenez, in the same court, presided by Judge Fuste himself) because both of these so called music publishers (illegally) licensed and were paid for the use of the song Genesis for the 1993 television program and again for the 1999 television program. This lawsuit, as of December 2007 (after almost 7 years) is  unresolved. In that lawsuit no one has claimed that the song was not performed. Incredible, the question being, what does it take to persuade Judge Fuste that the song was performed? Why did Fuste not read and discuss the very relevant 01cv1142 lawsuit before saying he was not persuaded the song was used?

Note: "the license here is evidence of only probable" if applied to the BMI licensed song that belonged to plaintiffs would mean also that he songs licensed by BMI and ASACAP were also infringements by Pee.

Important: This perversion of the truth is made by Fuste, out of own volition. If anyone said that Genesis was not performed by Banco Popular at trial it would have been perjury, So Fuste committed perjury?
While presented the argument that plaintiffs did not present proof that the songs that were licensed to radio stations it did not claim that the the licensed radio stations never licensed played GVL songs.

Note: But when it came to the smaller amount mechanical license Fuste did NOT say that the license is "evidence of only probable, not actual, infringement, of GVL’s songs.". If Fuste had said that then ACEMLA, by Fuste's theory ddid not infringe and would not have had to pay any damages and plaintiffs would have come out empty handed. Actually plaintiffs offered better or equal proof that Banco Popular performed Genesis than it sold recordings.

The correct principle may be this: A license is not proof of infringement but payment is proof. The logic is simple: No one pays royalties for the license itself, but the production done as authorized by the license.

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Bank Fraud is a felony
Theory: Omission made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing.

Interesting: Order is disobeyed. Six months after the judgement was made Defendant Chávez-Butler has neither appealed the judges opinion nor has she accounted for anything nor has she paid any money to Plaintiffs. Clearly the judge has been disobeyed but there has been no consequence of that action of disobeying and the judge has taken no action. 

Note: Because of ACEMLA parties (this inclides Chavez-Butler)  illegally claimed to own the songs recorded by Sonolux and Sony, and the subsequent collection of royalties from these recording companies by ACEMLA, the plaintiffs (heirs of GVL) estimate that they have not been able to collect royalties for about 10 million records and over 1 million dollars in royalties (plus interest).  Strange: this one million dollar loss was turned into a zero dollars damage award by Judge Fuste..

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies
Theory: Omission made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing.

See ACEMLA damages

2. In the last X number of years, Peer had been licensing the song Genesis through ASCAP and Harry Fox. Plaintiffs gave the court the information as to how much money Peer received from ASCAP and Peer did not provide the deductibles. Therefor by law plaintiffs plaintiffs were entitled to all ASCAP income. Plaintiffs did not give the court information as to how much was received from Harry Fox..... Plaintiffs can do that in the still pending Banco Popular lawsuit against Peer and ACEMLA.

3. The damages agains LAMCO beside being pitiful, were not for a claim included in the lawsuit and were related to the use of the song genesis by Banco Popular, which was no a party of the lawsuit.

4. The $16,363.47 in damages entence issued by Fuste against ACEMLA interfered with another lawsuit (Banco Popular vs LAMCO, 01cv1142). It was in that lawsuit that the use of the song Genesis by Banco Popular with a fraudulent license was to be attended.

3. Fuste did not read the lawsuit
The lawsuit ONLY claims and alleges:

This claim for damages was never withdrawn from the lawsuit or even modified, therefore Fuste had to issue a decision on the claim.
He ignored the primary damage claim in the lawsuit.

4. Error: Fuste omits sentences or injunctive relief's that oblige

a. ACEMLA to unregister songs.
b. Peer to unregister Borracho Sentimental or remove GVL name from the song.
c. Peer to notify BMG they do not own Genesis or rescind Genesis license to BMG
d. GVL Inc. to unregister songs owned by Peer.
e. Peer to pay unpaid royalties
f. Peer to make royalty reports every 6 months.
g. Peer to modify its systems so that songs are removed from all catalogs when no longer owned by Peer.
h. That Peer cooperate (meaning communicate) with GVL children for resolving international ownership and  licensing issues (if Peer has rights to all countries, as suggested -but not decided- by Fuste) . Peermusic seems to have two ways. For renewal rights the own the rights outside the U.S. - presumably because the U.S. renewal rights reversion is not recognized by other countries and in those countries that limit assignment periods (as in Mexico) Peer claims the rights in perpetuity (e.g.: because neither U.S. nor Mexican laws are recognized). More about the so called world rights Peermusic claims.
i. Peer to remove and certify removal of songs from ASCAP and Harry Fox catalog
j. Peer to remove and certify removal songs from foreign publisher catalogs
k. ACEMLA to remove and inform removal of songs from Harry Fox catalog
l. ACEMLA to remove and inform removal of songs from their own catalog
l. ACEMLA from cease and desist otherwise claiming ownership of songs (recently -2009- still on web page).

5. Fuste sets the damages based on what Peer says they got from that license, ~ $1,200 for including the song in a medley (the song was not sung in a medley, but was actually a full and highlight song (a matter of opinion). But plaintiffs can counter that by saying plaintiffs would have requested a payment of a different amount, say $10,000 and it is the owner who sets the price. So Fuste's logic is flawed.

6. Fuste used the wrong dollar (less than $2,000) amount to determine Peermusic income from the song Genesis, The correct amount is over $39,000. See here for details.

Note: The Peermusic employee that gave the court the amount of money that Peer received from Banco Popular for one infringement comitted perjury, assuming, as logic tell us, that the amount the court was given by Peermusic was less than the $5,000 awarded as damages by Fuste for two infringements. This is because Peermusic must have received well over $5,000 from Banco Popular. See here for details

7. 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). 

8. Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Bank Fraud is a felony
The Peer license to Banco Popular was fraudulent because Peer had no right to issue the license, as Fuste himself determined. Theory: Omission made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing.

A small comparison to show absurdity of Fuste award

A few days before the trial, Fuste awarded a $15,000 damage award against El Vocero newspaper, for using a surfing photograph without an amateur photographer's permission. 
Did El Vocero license others to use the phoyograph? No.
Did El Vocero reduce or limit the use of the photograph by the photographer? No.
Did El Vocero fraudeulently claim ownership of the photograph? No.
Does the taking of a surfing photograph requires artistic talent? No.
Was the photograph a famous one? No.
Was the photograph's market destroyed by El Vocer actions? No. There was no market.
Was the photographer a well known photographer? No.
Photographs used: 1
Award: $15,000

Now compare these answers to these questiony would be for the actions of LAMCO-ACEMLA:
Did LAMCO-ACEMLA license others to use the song Genesis? Yes.
Did LAMCO-ACEMLA reduce or limit the use of the song by the real owners? Yes.
Did LAMCO-ACEMLA fraudeulently claim ownership of the song? Yes.
Does the making a song like Genesis artistic talent? Yes.
Was the song a famous one? Yes.
Was the song's market destroyed by LAMCO-ACEMLA actions? Yes.
Was the author of the song a well known composer? Yes.
Songs used (stolen is a better word): Over 500
Did infringement stop: no *
Award: $16,363

* On 2002 a Puerto Rico court had resolved that the music of GVL belonged to the heir children. ACEMLA-LAMCO continued their infringement action of defiance 

of the court. Judge Fuste was fully aware of this decision. The indringement continues to this day, october 2004. 

Theory: Omission made because it did not fit the story line that Defendant was not guilty of wrongdoing.

Ignored by Judge Fuste:
Copyright Law: Violations are felonies

Peer never notified plaintiffs that they had "automatic" renewal rights in these songs. It is discovered during this case, when Peermusic admits that these songs are not claimed by them within only the US.

Even if they had, the district court further ruled, relying on Colon Gutierrez v. Registrador de Propiedad, 114 D.P.R. 850 (1983), that Lavoe's son, acting alone, did not have the right to convey copyrights to LAMCO.

Per Fuste, Monroig would have been simply given the royalties of about 75,000 records, or about (75,000 x .08) $6,000, and he would have instructed the jury about it. But Monroig got over 1,000 times that amount.

Questions: Is it not the purpose of jurisprudence to insure uniformity and equity in case treatment? Is there a constitutional issue when clearly there is no uniform treatment and equity?

But Fuste said that .... "the license here is evidence of only probable, not actual, infringement, of GVL’s songs. Without more, we cannot grant Plaintiffs a portion of the above mentioned profits." But "probable" is proof.

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

Plaintiffs had no right to information / Hidden discovery documents 
The Peer lawyer statement that Peer did not have to give any information to plaintiffs is a breach of contract because the beneficial owner has a natural right to information.

It should be noted that Peer's argument that Plaintiffs had no right to information was extended to the lawsuit itself. When Peer was requested as part of the discovery process, it sent 100 documents. Later on it turned out they had many more documents, and 1700 additional documents were produced. Clearly Peermusic, by not producing documents it had, was in violation of court procedures and was in fact hiding evidence. In addition there must be, this writer thinks, many more documents (evidence) that Peermusic did not produce, such as GVL related correspondence between Peer and GVL, Peer and ASCAP, Peer and PHAM, internal memos about the problems with the heirs, internal action requests, etc.

Why Judge Fuste did not issue a summary judgement against Peer when it became evident that Peer was hiding documents to intentionally suppress evidence is a very strange thing indeed.

The following is a case in point:
Because of defendant's Morgan Stanley & Co. failure to produce discovery documents, Palm Beach County (Florida) Circuit Judge Elizabeth T. Maass issued a summary judgment against defendants and in favor of plaintiff Ronald Perelman in his multibillion-dollar lawsuit. Mr. Perelmen was then awarded anput 1.5 billion dollars by a jury.

The refusal tpproduce discovery documents, wrote the Judge, harmed Perelman's case in a way "that cannot be cured. The judicial system cannot function this way."

Peer nor its lawyers were sanctioned or amonested by Judge Fuste for their subversion of the discovery process...hiding 95% of the documents they eventually produced (and surely hiding many more we can readily identify). Fuste was not angered.

Note: It was because of the tyranny of Peer that plaintiffs wee refused answers, royalties and even replies to many letters and the letter from their lawyer, Benicio Sanchez Rivera that provoked the filing of this lawsuit.
ACEMLA-LAMCO DISCOVERY
This publisher also committed massive document hiding. None of the documents they presented as required by the plaintiffs discovery request had any information about royalty payments for the music of GVL, nothing about the return of royalties to Sonolux, nothing about the performance of GVL songs, no copy of any license that covered GVL songs, receipts or copy of music materials received from executrix Chavez and so on. 

Note: In the Peer vs. ACEMLA lawsuit it was decided by Judge Perez Gomenez that merely having songs in a catalog was infringement.

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

Sure, GVL should have made two scores and should have kept one of them. But that is not how the system worked then. At the time, in all likelihood GVL did not know how to write scores and Peermusic had a staff musician whose job was to listen to the songwriters to write a score for Peermusic. Then that was the only score, and Peermusic became its custodian and was supposed to publish the scores - this is what songwriters were promised.

Pending is compensation by Peermusic for the loss of the songs.