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Tennessee Appeals Court Affirms Rights Of Hank Williams' Heirs to Radio Concerts
Courts have broadly interpreted in favor of record companies the language in agreements with artists that states the label will be able to reproduce the artist's recordings “by any method now or hereafter known.” But the Court of Appeals of Tennessee, at Nashville, decided that neither the record company to which the late country legend Hank Williams had signed, nor a company that obtained rights in the physical masters of Williams' 1950s radio performances had the right to exploit those recordings. Polygram Records Inc. v. Legacy Entertainment LLC, M2003-02608-COA-R3-CV.
Williams had been bound to MGM Records under an exclusive deal from 1947 to early 1953. In 1951 and 1952, Williams and his band, The Drifting Cowboys, performed live and on pre-recorded acetate discs for the “Mother's Best Flour” program on WSM radio. WSM decided to discard the acetates when moving from its downtown-Nashville offices in the 1960s. A photographer for the station then took possession of the recordings and sold them to Hillous Butrum, a former Drifting Cowboy. Butrum removed skips and hisses, added voiceovers, more music and registered the re-mixes for copyrights.
Legacy Entertainment bought the re-mixes from Butrum in 1997. When Legacy prepared to release the re-mixes on CD, Polygram Records, the successor to MGM Records, filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court arguing it had the exclusive rights to the WSM recordings under MGM's contract with Williams. Williams's heirs, Jett Williams and Hank Williams Jr., joined Polygram as plaintiffs. The trial court found that it was the Williams heirs, rather than Polygram or Legacy, who owned the rights to the WSM performances.
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