Pryor Cashman Partner James Sammataro, co-chair of the Music Group and Media + Entertainment Litigation Practice, spoke to Billboard about a copyright lawsuit filed against the Rolling Stones over their 2020 song "Living in a Ghost Town."
In "Rolling Stones Copyright Accuser Won't Get No Satisfaction, Experts Say," James says that the suit—filed by Sergio Garcia Fernandez (who performs as Angelslang), claiming that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards "misappropriated" elements of his earlier songs "So Sorry" and "Seed of God" after a family member played his demo for the Stones' songwriters—was unlikely to succeed:
[A]ccording to James Sammataro, a veteran copyright litigator and the co-chair of the music group at the law firm Pryor Cashman, those arguments fall well short of what's required under law.
He noted that the complaint "conspicuously" failed to name that family member, and also did not directly claim that they had actually handed the song off to Jagger or had been involved in creating "Ghost Town."
"A charitable read of the complaint is that plaintiff purportedly gave his demo to a family member of Jagger who might have passed along the demo to Jagger, but that plaintiff have no idea whether it actually happened," Sammataro wrote. "Such speculative allegations are far too attenuated to infer a reasonable possibility of access. If there was a strong claim of access, the plaintiff would have presumably pled it."
Read the full article using the link below.
[Billboard] Rolling Stones Copyright Accuser Won't Get No Satisfaction, Experts Say
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