Whether FBT owns the Copyright
20.Mr Colbey gave two reasons why FBT might not own the Copyright – he could put it no higher. 21.The first related to the initial link in FBT’s chain of title, the recording agreement with Eminem dated 28 November 1995 (‘the 1995 Agreement’). The counterparty to 22.His point was that in the 1995 Agreement the Bass Brothers are defined as ‘(hereafter “Company”)’. Mr Colbey speculated that there might be a real company, nowhere identified, which was the first owner of the Copyright and there was no sign that it was any part of chain of assignment to FBT. 23.Mr Martin was clear in his evidence about this. Bass Brothers were a partnership in 1995, running a recording studio. He could not say why the attorney who had drafted the 1995 Agreement had chosen to use ‘Company’ as the shorthand term for the Bass Brothers. He thought that the partnership may have been registered under Michigan law and that this might have something to do with it, but Mr Martin is not a lawyer. One plausible explanation that occurs to me is that the attorney who drafted the 1995 Agreement began with a precedent in which ‘Company’ was a more appropriate abbreviation. It doesn’t matter. The definitions clause, clause 24, states at subclause (l): “ ‘Company’ means F.B.T. Productions, its licensees, lessees, affiliates, subsidiaries and assigns.” 24.This too would be more appropriate for a company, but F.B.T. Productions is identified and this was the trading name of the Bass Brothers partnership. At the bottom of the 1995 Agreement there is a signature which can be made out as ‘Marshall Mathers’ and another signature, which looks like ‘Mark Bass’, and which has beneath it ‘Partner, F.B.T. Productions’. 25.I have no doubt that the 1995 Agreement was between Eminem and the Bass Brothers partnership. 26.Mr Colbey’s second reason for casting doubt on FBT’s claim to the Copyright concerned an agreement dated 9 March 1998 (‘the 1998 Agreement’) between Eminem, the Bass Brothers partnership (again identified as ‘F.B.T. Productions’) and Aftermath Entertainment (‘Aftermath’) which, as I have said, is a division of Universal Music, the giant US music corporation. 27.Clause 12(a) includes this, in which ‘Artist’ is Eminem: 28.Schedule 1 is blank. Mr Colbey suggested that there must have been something in Schedule 1 and speculated that there had been an incomplete disclosure of documents by FBT and that other documents would reveal that Infinite either was, or should have been listed in Schedule 1 and thus assigned to Aftermath. 29.This was wishful thinking. The 1998 Agreement begins with an introduction setting out its purpose: “The following, when executed by all of the parties, will confirm the material terms of the agreement (the ‘Agreement’) between Aftermath Entertainment (‘Aftermath’) and F.B.T. Productions (‘F.B.T.’) regarding F.B.T. furnishing to Aftermath the exclusive recording services of Marshall B. Mathers III p/k/a ‘EMINEM’ (‘Artist’).” 30.31.I find that FBT is the owner of the Copyright.