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Counsel Concerns

By Stan Soocher

Malpractice Suit over Sound Recordings Is Reinstated

The New York Appellate Division, First Department, reinstated a malpractice suit filed by a law firm client over copyright problems from releasing re-mastered sound recordings. HNH International Ltd. V. Pryor Cashman Sherman & Flynn LLP, 2009 N.Y. Slip. Op. 04964. The trial court had granted Pryor Cashman's motion to dismiss HNH's malpractice suit, which alleged the law firm “incorrectly advised [HNH] concerning the early 20th century sound recordings they proposed to re-engineer, re-master and distribute as CDs.” The recordings in question ' classical music works by artists like Sergei Rachmaninov, Yehudi Menuhin and Pablo Casals ' were released through HNH's Naxos of America subsidiary. Capitol Records sued Naxos over the products' distribution. The New York Court of Appeals ultimately decided that a New York common-law copyright isn't extinguished by termination of a foreign copyright in a work and that a “new” re-mastered recording can infringe on an original work. Capitol Records Inc. v. Naxos of American Inc., 4 N.Y.3d 520 (2005).

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