Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
Citation Limited Pursuant to lst Cir. Loc. R. 32.3
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 02-2104
LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC COMPANY, INC., AND ASOCIACION DE
COMPOSITORES Y EDITORES DE MUSICA LATINO AMERICANA, INC.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
CARDENAS FERNANDEZ & ASSOCIATES, INC.; DAVID MALDONADO, D/B/A
DAVID MALDONADO ENTERTAINMENT; CFDM THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS, LLC;
PROMOTORES LATINOS, INC.; CENTRO DE BELLAS ARTES CORP.;
CORPORACION PARA EL FOMENTO DE LAS ARTES Y LA CULTURA,
Defendants, Appellees.
SONIDO, INC.,
Intervenor, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Perez-Gimenez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
Wilma I. Cadilla-Vazquez for appellants.
Clifford James, with whom Miguel J. Rodriguez Marxuach,
Fensterstock & Partners LLP, and Rodriguez Marxuach Law Offices,
P.S.C., were on brief, for intervenor-appellee.
April 8, 2003
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COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs-appellants Latin
American Music Company ("LAMCO") and Asociacion de Compositores y
Editores de Musica Latino Americana ("ACEMLA") appeal the district
court's grant of summary judgment to defendants-appellees on all of
plaintiffs' copyright claims and its subsequent denial of
plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration. Finding no error in the
court's rulings, we affirm.
I. Background
The facts are largely undisputed. Plaintiffs are corporations
that claim rights in several songs performed as part of a play
about composer Hector Lavoe's life ("Quien Mato a Hector Lavoe?"),
produced in New York City in 1999 and San Juan, Puerto Rico, in
2000. The songs were written by Hector Lavoe (the stage name for
Hector Perez), by Lavoe with Wilfredo Colon, or by Catalino "Tite"
Curet Alonso.1
Plaintiffs alleged that defendants, who created or were
involved in the production of the play, violated their rights by
performing the songs without obtaining licenses from them.
Defendants responded that they had obtained valid licenses from the
rightful copyright transferee, Fania Publishing Company, through
Sonido, Inc.
1
We note that the district court found that one of the songs
in which plaintiffs claimed rights, "Todo Tiene Su Final," was
composed by Colon alone. Because the plaintiffs acknowledge having
no claims to any songs written by Colon alone, we do not consider
this song.
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Fania, the original copyright transferee, had entered into
Standard Songwriters Agreements ("SSAs") with Lavoe and Alonso in
the 1970s and 1980s that assigned Fania copyright interests in five
of the six songs at issue ("Paraiso de Dulzura," "Periodico de
Ayer," "Pirana," "El Todopoderoso," and "La Fama"). Defendants
produced a Certificate of Registration from the U.S. Copyright
Office, filed by Fania as the "Copyright Claimant," for the final
song, "La Murga."
For each composition, the SSAs encompassed:
all musical and non-musical rights therein, the title,
words and music thereof, (and all literary characters
contained therein), the worldwide copyright thereof and
the right to secure copyright therein throughout the
entire world and to have and to hold the said copyright
together with all of their right, title and interest,
both legal and equitable therein, including but not
limited to the sole and exclusive worldwide publication,
mechanical reproducing, and motion picture and television
synchronization rights and the right of public
performance by any means, and all other rights now known
or hereafter to come into existence, subject to the terms
of this agreement.
Each SSA was binding on "the respective parties hereto, their
respective successors in interest, legal representatives and
assigns and . . . cannot be terminated, or amended except by a
writing signed by all of the parties hereto."2
2
The one SSA executed in the 1980s, by Lavoe, contained
slightly altered language. It pertained to the composition "La
Fama" and assigned "the title words and music, and all copyrights
thereof . . . and all rights, claims and demands in any way
relating thereto, and the exclusive right to secure copyright
therein throughout the entire world." It applied to successors in
interest, but did not require termination by mutual agreement in
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Sonido had obtained copyright licenses for the songs from
Valsyn, which owned Fania Publishing, and subsequently leased them
to defendants. As evidence of this transfer of rights, defendants
provided a series of licensing agreements: an October 1, 1986,
licensing agreement between Valsyn and Sonido, wherein Valsyn
conveyed to Sonido a license to use the songs at issue while
retaining ownership of the copyrights; a renewal of the agreement
between Valsyn and Sonido extending its expiration from December
31, 1999, to December 31, 2004; and an agreement between defendant
CFDM Theatrical Productions and Sonido dated July 5, 1999, in which
CFDM licensed the songs to be used in the play's production.3
Plaintiffs suggested that Alonso had sought to terminate the
SSAs, producing a 1983 letter from Alonso to Fania, which
apparently indicated his desire to end the agreements. With regard
to Lavoe's compositions, plaintiffs produced assignments of
copyrights they received from Lavoe's son, Jose Perez, after Lavoe
died in 1993. Perez registered the copyrights with the U.S.
Copyright Office in 1999 and subsequently assigned the copyrights
to LAMCO. Lavoe's other two heirs, his daughter and his widow,
writing. Nevertheless, the district court made no distinction
between the agreements and plaintiffs have not raised this as an
issue on appeal.
3
CFDM was a partnership between Cardenas Fernandez &
Associates and David Maldonado Presents, created specifically for
the purpose of producing "Quien Mato a Hector Lavoe?" in New York
City and Puerto Rico.
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were not parties to that assignment. Plaintiffs did not produce
any evidence tending to show that any of the SSAs were actually
terminated by the requisite mutually signed writing.
The district court granted summary judgment to defendants,
concluding that plaintiffs' rights were not infringed upon by the
production of the play because defendants had proven they held
valid licenses to use the songs. Subsequently, plaintiffs sought
reconsideration by the district court. Although defendants
neglected to defend the motion for reconsideration, Sonido was
granted leave to intervene and contest plaintiffs' motion, which
the district court denied. Defendants have not responded to
plaintiffs' appeal from the district court judgment, and this court
has also granted Sonido the status of intervenor-appellee.
II. Discussion
Plaintiffs appeal from the district court's decisions to stay
discovery, grant summary judgment to defendants, and deny
plaintiffs' motion to reconsider.
A. Stay of Discovery
Plaintiffs complain that the district court prejudiced their
case by staying discovery proceedings while the motion for summary
judgment was under advisement. Plaintiffs suggest that they would
have sought evidence to refute the legitimacy of Sonido's
copyrights and their subsequent licensing to defendants. They
further contend that they had claims against defendant Centro de
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Bellas Artes Corporation, operator of the theater in Puerto Rico
where the play was shown, that they "had not yet begun to litigate"
due to the court's stay of discovery.4 Plaintiffs argue that the
district court was in violation of this court's February 2001 order
vacating the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction
and requiring the court to conduct "further proceedings."
Our review of the record reveals that plaintiffs failed to
oppose defendants' motion to stay discovery. Nor did plaintiffs
file a request to compel discovery, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37,
or a motion for further discovery, authorized by Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(f), prior to the court's decision on summary judgment. Had the
plaintiffs protested the stay or informed the court of what
information they sought to obtain while the court considered the
motions at issue, the situation would be vastly different. By
choosing to forgo Rule 37 relief, plaintiffs waived any claim of
error on appeal. See, e.g., U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Baker
Material Handling Corp., 62 F.3d 24, 29 (1st Cir. 1995) (holding
that plaintiffs "plainly waived" claim of unfair trial by foregoing
4
Plaintiffs make a companion argument that their claims
against Centro de Bellas Artes were not resolved by the district
court's orders and thus the judgment before us is not final.
Although Centro de Bellas Artes did not join in the motion for
summary judgment filed by other defendants, the court granted
summary judgment to all defendants. Thus, there has been a final
judgment with regard to all of plaintiffs' claims in this case,
including those against Centro de Bellas Artes.
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Rule 37 relief in favor of airing "cover-up" claims in front of
jury).
B. Summary Judgment
Plaintiffs appeal the court's grant of summary judgment to
defendants on several grounds. Most of plaintiffs' arguments were
not made until the motion for reconsideration, and as such were
forfeited, as explained in the next section. The only preserved
claim that plaintiffs make with regard to the court's summary
judgment ruling is that the court erred in concluding that under
Puerto Rico law Lavoe's son could not unilaterally transfer rights
to them.
In their summary judgment motion, defendants argued primarily
that they held valid, unrevoked assignments from the songs'
composers dating back to the 1970s and 1980s and therefore any
assignments to plaintiffs, occurring later in time, were
necessarily invalid. Plaintiffs, in their three paragraph argument
in response, made two particular points. First, they noted that
the original agreement between Valsyn and Sonido ended in December
1999 and thus was not in existence at the time the play was
produced, making the licenses granted to defendants from Sonido
invalid. Plaintiffs identified this as the "one simple, yet
compelling fact, that defeats any possibility of success for Co-
defendants' motion for summary judgment." (With their reply,
defendants proved this argument meritless by producing the renewal
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of the Valsyn-Sonido agreement, which extended its expiration to
December 2004.) Second, plaintiffs suggested that the composers
had in fact cancelled their original agreements with Fania,
submitting Alonso's 1983 letter in support.
The district court held that defendants had proven a valid
chain of transfers of the copyrights from the original transferee
to defendants for use in the play. The court concluded that
plaintiffs had not produced evidence to show that the original
assignments had been properly terminated, and thus they had no
enforceable rights of their own. 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.
As the court intimated in its denial of reconsideration, this
issue is ultimately inconsequential to the disposition of the case
because Lavoe's estate did not include the copyrights. Pursuant to
their terms, the SSAs between Lavoe and Fania did not expire upon
Lavoe's death, and having not been terminated via mutual written
agreement by Lavoe or his heirs, the copyrights continued to reside
with Fania and its successors. We therefore need not, and do not,
consider the merits of plaintiffs' argument that Lavoe's son had a
right to unilaterally transfer copyrights.
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C. Motion to Reconsider
Finally, plaintiffs appeal the district court's conclusion in
its denial of reconsideration that they waived two arguments that
they profess should have precluded summary judgment. They suggest
that the court erred because it failed to recognize disputed issues
of material fact and, alternatively, it neglected to consider a
legal issue that was dispositive in their favor. Neither of these
arguments was made prior to the motion to reconsider. We may
reverse the district court's decision only if it was an abuse of
discretion. See Tiller v. Baghdady, 294 F.3d 277, 284 (1st Cir.
2002).
(1) Factual Issues
Plaintiffs assert that genuine issues of material fact
remained concerning defendants' documentary evidence. First, they
argue that, because the agreements between Valsyn and Sonido were
not produced in original form, their authenticity was questionable.
Second, plaintiffs claim that the Valsyn-Sonido agreement was also
suspect because it did not reference any particular composition or
specific authors, but instead applied to all master recordings that
had been released on the "Fania" label. Finally, plaintiffs
complain that the original SSAs were not produced and thus the
signatures of the composers have not been verified. Because these
arguments were not made in plaintiffs' opposition to summary
judgment, the district court ruled that they were forfeited.
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It is customary to append copies of documents to a summary
judgment motion and produce originals only if authenticity is
challenged. Although plaintiffs suggest that they sought to view
the original SSAs, no Rule 37 motion to compel was made. In short,
the court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that
plaintiffs' contentions about the agreements produced by defendants
were untimely. See Landrau-Romero v. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico,
212 F.3d 607, 612 (1st Cir. 2000) ("It is well-settled . . . that
new legal arguments or evidence may not be presented via Rule
59(e).").5
(2) Section 205 of the Copyright Act
Finally, plaintiffs allude to an allegedly unresolved issue of
law that they claim is dispositive of the case. Plaintiffs argue
that because defendants' assignments were not registered or
recorded with the Copyright Office, and otherwise failed to meet
Copyright Act requirements, plaintiffs' recorded copyrights are
superior. They specifically contend that the provision of the
5
Plaintiffs also assert a genuine issue of material fact in
the alleged bad faith of one of the defendants, David Maldonado, in
entering into an agreement with Sonido after plaintiffs informed
him of their copyright claims. We assume that plaintiffs are
referencing the Sonido-CFDM agreement since David Maldonado had no
contract with Sonido, but David Maldonado Presents was part of
CFDM, which was party to the agreement with Sonido. Because
plaintiffs did not raise this argument in either the motion for
summary judgment or the motion for reconsideration, it was
forfeited. Reviewing for plain error, see Chestnut v. City of
Lowell, 305 F.3d 18, 20 (1st Cir. 2002) (en banc) (per curiam), we
find none.
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Copyright Act governing conflicting transfers, 17 U.S.C. § 205,
applies and dictates an outcome in their favor.
Again, plaintiffs did not make this argument until the motion
for reconsideration. They contend that they preserved it, however,
by presenting it to the court during previous colloquies that
concerned both the instant case and related cases and by raising it
before this court in a previous appeal.6
We agree with the district court, however, that plaintiffs
forfeited this issue. In our review of the record, we find that
although plaintiffs made recurrent references to the Copyright Act
in general, it was not until their motion for reconsideration that
they specified a reliance on section 205. Thus, when deciding the
motion for summary judgment, the district court was justified in
believing that plaintiffs had decided to place all of their eggs in
one basket, disputing the validity of the defendants' original
assignments.
6
In our previous order, we directed the district court to
consider the merits of plaintiffs' claims in ruling on a request
for injunctive relief. Latin Am. Music Co. v. Cardenas Fernandez
& Assocs., No. 00-1443, 2 Fed. Appx. 40 (1st Cir. Feb. 23, 2001)
("The copyright claims in this case are complicated, and nothing we
say is intended to suggest a view that plaintiff is likely to
prevail, although this is likely to be the key issue as to
injunctive relief."). Plaintiffs suggest that our order required
the district court to specifically consider the section 205
argument. Nothing in that opinion, however, relieved plaintiffs
from their burden of informing the district court of the bases on
which they opposed summary judgment.
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Plaintiffs' claims that they made the section 205 argument in
related proceedings, in particular at a status conference held on
July 26, 2001, in which multiple cases were discussed, are not
verifiable in the record before us. Only one status conference
appears in the record; it was held on July 6, 2001, and reflects
discussion of this case only. The conference notes report that
counsel for one of the defendants was "closely following the four
main cases involving Latin American Music Co., Inc. (96-2312, 97-
2356, 97-2875, 98-1597) and waiting to see who owns what, and who
will transfer what, in order to determine how they will proceed.
In all probability the Court will appoint a special master for all
of these cases." No indication that substantive arguments
regarding section 205 were made is revealed.
In the alternative, plaintiffs contend that this case was "de
facto" consolidated with other cases. As the district court noted
in its denial of reconsideration, the record makes plain that
plaintiffs labored under this faulty assumption, even though no
motion for consolidation was made prior to the motion to
reconsider.7 Even if plaintiffs made their section 205 argument to
the court in the related litigation, they were required to
reiterate, or at the very least reference, the argument in their
7
In their motion for reconsideration, plaintiffs argued that
there were indispensable parties, namely the composers themselves
and Sonido, who should be joined. In the alternative, they
suggested that the court should consolidate the case with related
pending litigation.
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opposition to summary judgment. Finally, even if plaintiffs made
the section 205 argument in their initial appeal, we did not
reflect such argument in our opinion, much less direct the district
court to consider it in this different phase of the case. The
district court cannot, therefore, be faulted for not considering
the argument, never raised directly before it. Thus, the district
court's refusal to consider plaintiffs' belated section 205
argument was not an abuse of discretion.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court
is affirmed.
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