ContractsProf Blog

Don't rely on vague promises that you'll be "taken care of"

I had been paying attention to this case out of the Western District of Washington, Moi v. Chihuly Studio, Inc., Cause No. C17-0853RSL (behind paywall), because it raises interesting copyright authorship issues. The case is a lawsuit brought by a person who was one of Chihuly's assistants, who create artwork in Chihuly's name under Chihuly's supervision. The plaintiff worked for Chihuly in this way for fifteen years, until a falling-out between Chihuly and another of the assistants resulted in the deterioration of the plaintiff's relationship with Chihuly as well. The plaintiff filed this lawsuit alleging co-authorship of 285 artworks and requesting compensation for his work on them. You can read more about the lawsuit here. 

As I said, I was paying attention to this case for the copyright authorship analysis, which follows the Aalmuhammed test and finds that, because the plaintiff did not exercise control, he is not an author of the artworks, despite his copyrightable contributions to the artworks. The authorship test analysis also considers the lack of contract between the plaintiff and Chihuly as indicating that Chihuly did not intend to share authorship with the plaintiff. 

That same lack of contract dooms the plaintiff's attempt to seek compensation for his work. Because there's no contract, the plaintiff's cause of action is promissory estoppel, but Chihuly's promises over the years to compensate plaintiff by keeping track of which artworks plaintiff had contributed to were, in the court's view, too vague to constitute promises that the plaintiff could have relied on. The plaintiff confessed that he had no idea what his eventual compensation might be or when he would receive it, just that he trusted Chihuly to treat him "fairly." Promises forming the basis of promissory estoppel need to be clear and definite, and Chihuly's statements were simply too vague. Considering that plaintiff couldn't even say what they meant, the court refused to enforce them. 

This is, once again, a lesson in making sure you have a clear and complete understanding with someone, and not just vague platitudes. 

Another consideration discussion

I just blogged about a consideration case last week, and now here's another one out of Illinois, Johnson v. Illinois Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Professional Certification Association, Nos. 4-18-0562 4-18-0575 cons (behind paywall). This case concerns an at-will employment contract that was later modified to include a definite retirement date. The defendant argues that there was no consideration for this modification of the contract, and thus it's not binding. However, the court notes that Johnson gave up his ability to work for the defendant beyond the retirement date and that that served as consideration for the modification of the employment contract. There were also some changes in job duties and title as well as an additional agreement reached on how sick and vacation days would be used over the remainder of the employment term. All of this was sufficient to show that both parties bargained for things from the other in this new binding contract. 

A brand new apple variety leads to a discussion about extrinsic evidence

Continuing the theme of thinking about fall courses, a recent case out of the Western District of Washington, Phytelligence, Inc. v. Washington State University, Case No. C18-405 RSM (behind paywall), has a discussion about both extrinsic evidence and agreements to agree -- both topics my students often struggle with. Might be worthwhile to take a look at this recent analysis, especially if you teach in Washington. 

Plus it's a dispute about a new apple variety, which is pretty cool. You can read more about it here and here. 

 

If you don't pay for a raffle ticket, there's no contract for the prize

If you've already started thinking about gathering examples for your courses this fall, here's a consideration case for you out of Ohio, Forbes v. Showmann, Inc., Appeal No. C-180325. Forbes was an employee of Showmann, and at a holiday party Showmann gave its employees, including Forbes, raffle tickets. One of the prizes was what sounds like a pretty sweet cruise package, and Forbes won the cruise. Showmann terminated Forbes's employment a few weeks later and informed Forbes that the cruise package was conditioned on Forbes still being a Showmann employee when she took the cruise. 

Forbes sued for breach of contract but the problem was that it was undisputed that Forbes did not pay for the raffle ticket. Showmann simply distributed the raffle tickets for free to its employees. Therefore, there was no consideration with which to form a contract. Forbes tried to argue her employment by Showmann was the consideration for the ticket but Forbes's employment was not used to bargain for the raffle ticket in exchange, so therefore there was no contract. 

If you feel bad for Forbes, which I admit I kind of did based on these given facts, her conversion claim does survive, so there is some hope for her. 

The challenges of licensing music

This isn’t, strictly speaking, about contracts, I guess. But it is about a consent decree, which is at heart a document that binds parties to terms. The Department of Justice has announced that it is reviewing the antitrust consent decree that governs ASCAP and BMI, the two major performing rights organizations used by songwriters and music publishers. Because ASCAP and BMI control so much of the music licensing market, they have been governed by a consent decree for several decades, with the Department of Justice worried about the competitive effects of their near-monopoly over music licensing.

I thought, therefore, that maybe it was time for me to share my friend's Music Licensing Experience.

The music copyright holders keep noting that piracy is a major problem. However, piracy tends to decrease if you make it easier for people to gain legal access to the work in the question. For some time now, studies have shown that people will pay for content, if they are given a feasibly legal way to do it.

A friend of mine was starting a noncommercial podcast. Podcasts are all the rage now. They’re low-cost and have few barriers to entry, and recording equipment is so cheap and easy to come by these days, basically anyone can have a podcast. I am frequently asked by students for information about using music on podcasts. They’ve heard, of course, that any length of time less than thirty seconds is “automatic fair use.”

So my friend’s got this noncommercial podcast and they want to use, in a single episode, two separate clips of the same copyrighted song. Together, the clips total less than forty seconds. My friend, who is not a lawyer, was inclined to do what so many lawyers do, and just take the risk and use the song. “But no!” I protested. “You know me, a copyright lawyer! You should properly license the song!”

I had, in actuality, never licensed a song before. But, I thought, how hard can it be? It shouldn’t be hard, right? Wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the music copyright holders to make it relatively easy for this kind of use to be licensed? Especially given the apparent stance BMI takes that there is no way for you to use music without a license.

(Fair use? What fair use?)

I told my friend that either BMI or ASCAP would probably have the rights to the song, and they should just ask for a license through the right one. So they looked into it. BMI ended up being the organization to contact, and my friend found a literal tab for Podcasts on the BMI website, so they contacted BMI.

I thought that would be the end of it for my friend, but BMI’s response, unfortunately, was not very helpful. BMI said that the only license it offers is a blanket license, so my friend could not license a single work the way they wanted. The blanket license would be an annual license of almost four hundred dollars a year – a lot of money for a noncommercial podcast that wanted to use a grand total of forty seconds of music from a single song. But, BMI informed them, that license would get my friend access to fourteen million songs!

The problem: My friend didn’t want access to fourteen million songs. My friend wanted one song. Also, I’m pretty sure that BMI is actually required by that consent decree currently under review to offer per-song licensing rates. See Section IX.C ("[BMI] shall not, in connection with any offer to license by it the public performance of musical compositions by music users other than broadcasters, refuse to offer a license . . . for the performance of such specific (i.e., per piece) musical compositions, the use of which shall be requested by the prospective licensee."); see also United States v. Broad. Music, Inc., 275 F.3d 168, 178 n.2 (2d Cir. 2001) ("[T]he per piece license . . . is explicitly required in Section IX(C).”). My friend told me what BMI said, and I told my friend that maybe they should try again, maybe they weren’t clear the first time. So they wrote back to BMI, clarifying that they wanted a per-song rate.

BMI responded saying that it was not capable of providing my friend with the licensing rights they wanted. Despite the fact that it had been very willing to provide my friend with a license for several hundred dollars in the previous email, it now took the stand that it did not have the ability to provide rights for a song used within a podcast, and my friend had to contact a different entity. I don’t know if I’m more alarmed by BMI trying to sell my friend a license that wouldn’t actually cover their use, or BMI lying about whether it could sell them a license that would cover their use.

At any rate, BMI at least provided my friend with the contact information for another entity, which my friend contacted. But that entity wrote back and said it was not the right entity and provided the contact information for yet another entity. Which never wrote back to my friend’s request at all.

So, in the end, that’s how music licensing goes if you’re a little guy, I guess: It doesn’t. My friend lost a little bit of faith in the U.S. copyright legal system as a result of their experience, and that definitely harms all of us. And as we’re thinking about the music business in the context of the consent decree, maybe we should also think about the people who use music. Because, sometimes, as studies keep showing, they’d really love to pay the artist, they literally can’t find the way to do it.

(Could my friend’s use qualify as fair use? I am offering no legal opinion on that. What I will say is that, fair use doesn’t stop you from getting a DMCA notice.)