Originally Posted by
kenneth
I'm no expert in Intellectual Property law, although I took it in law school. [[It's an elective.) However, the Supremes' original contracts likely prohibited them from promoting themselves as ever having been in the group once they were terminated or if they left on their own. I've never seen the Supremes' original contract terms, but I have seen those of members of the Drifters because they had cases in litigation for years [[as did the Platters) for the same reasons, being unable to cite the Drifters as part of their musical history. The Drifters' standard contracts forbade members from ever utilizing the Drifters name, which was a valuable copyright, in any connection to their careers.
This is the language from the Drifters' contracts:
"The Artist agrees that the name of THE DRIFTERS belongs exclusively to the Employer and that he will not at any time use the name of The Drifters or any name similar thereto or any name incorporating The Drifters. In the event the employee leaves the employ of The Drifters he will not in any way advertise or attempt to publicize the fact that he had been a member of a singing group known as The Drifters and will not associate his name in any manner with The Drifters; and he further acknowledges that the name, The Drifters, is a valuable property and any violation of this paragraph could not be adequately compensated by money damages and he therefore agrees that the Employer shall be entitled to an injunction in any Court of competent jurisdiction to enjoin any violation or threatened violation of this contract by the Artist."
The reference to an injunction means that Atlantic Records could get a restraining order or injunction to prohibit the artist from touring, advertising or other conduct which was a violation of the terms of this agreement.
As far as the images go, Motown likely claimed that the Dinty Moore commercial would lead viewers to assume it was the Supremes or somehow the group was associated with the Supremes. That would be their argument, anyway. The "likelihood of confusion" is one of the required elements to prove copyright infringement and comes from a famous case involving the well known camera company and is known as one of the "Polaroid factors." Right to the group's "image and likeness" wouldn't extend to "lookalike" groups who were designed to entertain, unless the likeness extended to the point where a viewing member of the audience might think they were seeing the Supremes.
The "White Boys" sequence from "Hair," would be, I believe, what is considered a "fair use" of the copyright or image, because it was clearly done as a spoof for humorous or artistic purpose. No one who saw the performers in "Hair" would be confused enough to think they were actually seeing the Supremes; hence the "likelihood of confusion" element is not met. "Fair use" can also include brief mentions in literature [[this wouldn't include album reviews of course, which are not an infringement at all), but rather in fiction, for example, if a character in a novel went to a Supremes concert. It would also include, perhaps, brief excerpts from songs, like a line or two. These boundaries or limits have all been tested by hip hop and rap artists' use of earlier recordings, but I don't know how the law has developed in this area over the years so I can't say what the parameters are in this regard.
Remember, anything can be written into a contract so long as it is not illegal, so ownership of the group name even if it had been thought up or chosen by Florence, the ability to exploit the group name after one left the group, and other terms would all likely be included so as to benefit the company. These are done through "assignment" clauses, which would grant all such rights to the company. Original authorship or ownership is irrelevant. It's essentially akin to signing the rights to your home over to someone else. Yes, you owned it yesterday, but a simple Quitclaim Deed can assign all your ownership rights to another person today, on a single piece of paper which takes about 5 minutes to complete.
Also remember, at the time the girls were minors, had no legal representation, and Mary Wilson's mother who signed the contract for Mary, was illiterate.
Very one sided, very skewed to Motown's benefit, naturally. Motown was likely not the worst in this regard, but in my humble opinion they went a long way towards showing that black owned companies could exploit black artists just as much as a white owned company. While Gordy can be commended for many things regarding getting black music to mainstream America, I think the exploitation of the artists leaves a very big stain on his legacy.
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