Recording Artists File ‘Works for Hire’ Brief

The Recording Artists Coalition, a trade group co-founded by former Eagles singer-songwriter Don Henley, has filed court papers asking a federal judge to not declare that musicians’ songs are “works for hire.”

The brief from the coalition was submitted Nov. 7 to Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Patel is overseeing the suit in which the record companies are seeking to have Napster Inc. found liable for allowing unauthorized swapping of online music files.

Lawyers for the coalition said the vast majority of copyright registrations submitted in court by the major record labels claim ownership of artists’ recordings as “works for hire” under federal law.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America said the new filing is irrelevant because there is no dispute about the labels’ ownership of the recordings in the Napster case.