United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 16-2441
LUIS ADRIÁN CORTÉS-RAMOS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA, SONY ATV MUSIC PUBLISHING, LLC,
SONY MUSIC HOLDINGS INC., agent of Sony Music Entertainment,
SONY PICTURES TELEVISION, INC., SONY MUSIC BRAZIL, SONY
ELECTRONICS, INC.,
Defendants, Appellees,
ENRIQUE MARTIN-MORALES, a/k/a Ricky Martin,
Defendant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Lipez, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Juan R. Rodríguez, with whom Rodríguez Lopez Law Offices,
P.S.C. was on brief, for appellant.
David C. Rose, with whom Pryor Cashman LLP, Jorge I. Peirats,
Maria D. Trelles-Hernández and Pietrantoni Méndez & Alvarez LLC,
were on brief, for appellees.
May 4, 2018
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BARRON, Circuit Judge. This appeal is from an order
granting a motion for attorney's fees pursuant to the Copyright
Act. We reverse.
On July 28, 2014, the plaintiff, Luis Adrián Cortés-
Ramos, filed a complaint in the District of Puerto Rico against
Sony Corporation of America (Sony) and other related defendants,
in connection with a songwriting contest that Sony had co-
sponsored. The suit alleged various claims under Puerto Rico and
federal law, including claims under the Copyright Act. 17 U.S.C.
§ 505.
The District Court dismissed with prejudice all of the
claims on the grounds that they were subject to mandatory
arbitration pursuant to an agreement that Cortés-Ramos had signed
when he entered the contest and that he had failed to allege facts
sufficient to support his claims under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).
We affirmed the District Court's order dismissing the claims. See
Cortés-Ramos v. Sony Corp. of Am., 836 F.3d 128 (1st Cir. 2016).
The defendants then moved for attorney's fees pursuant
to § 505 of the Copyright Act, which provides for a "reasonable
attorney's fee to the prevailing party." 17 U.S.C. § 505. The
District Court granted the defendants' motion and awarded
$47,601.78 in attorney's fees.
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Cortés-Ramos now argues that the District Court erred in
awarding attorney's fees because the defendants do not qualify as
prevailing parties under § 505. We agree.
In evaluating a similarly worded attorney's fees
provision to the one that we confront here, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983,
1988(b) (providing that federal district courts may "allow the
prevailing party . . . a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the
costs"), the Supreme Court made clear that "[t]he touchstone of
the prevailing party inquiry . . . [is] the material alteration of
the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress
sought to promote in the fee statute." Sole v. Wyner, 551 U.S.
74, 82 (2007) (internal quotations and citations omitted)
(emphasis added). Here, there has been no such alteration.
When these parties were last before us on appeal, we did
affirm the District Court's order dismissing Cortés-Ramos' claims
(including the Copyright Act claims) "with prejudice." Cortés-
Ramos, 836 F.3d at 129-30. But, we made clear that we were doing
so solely because we were affirming the District Court's order
compelling arbitration of these claims. Id. at 130. And, we
expressly noted that "in light of the District Court's order
compelling arbitration, Cortés's claims 'ha[ve] not been
extinguished but [have been] merely left to the arbitrator.'" Id.
at 130 (quoting Next Step Med. Co. v. Johnson & Johnson Int'l, 619
F.3d 67, 71 (1st Cir. 2010)).
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Thus, the only material alteration in the parties' legal
relationship concerning the Copyright Act arises from a ruling
regarding the forum in which Cortés-Ramos' Copyright Act claims
must be heard. But, the Copyright Act -- unlike the Federal
Arbitration Act, see 9 U.S.C. § 2 -- reflects no congressional
policy favoring or disfavoring arbitration of claims. There thus
has been no "material alteration of the legal relationship of the
parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote" when it
enacted § 505 of the Copyright Act. Sole, 551 U.S. at 82; see
also Heritage Capital Corp. v. Christie's, Inc., No. 3:16-CV-3404-
D, 2018 WL 398202, at *3 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 12, 2018) (holding that
Defendant did not qualify under § 505 of the Copyright Act as a
prevailing party because compelling arbitration was a procedural
victory that did not materially alter the legal relationship
between the parties).
We therefore reverse the order of the District Court
granting attorney's fees to the defendants.
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