George Clinton should face late bandmate’s property copyright go well with, appeals courtroom guidelines

A federal appeals courtroom has revived a copyright lawsuit introduced by the property of late Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell towards George Clinton and his firm Thang, Inc.

The US Court docket of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a decrease courtroom’s dismissal of the case on Wednesday (Might 27), ruling that real disputes of fabric reality stay over whether or not the statute of limitations bars the property’s claims of co-ownership over P-Funk recordings made between 1976 and 1979.

A district courtroom choose in Michigan had beforehand thrown out the lawsuit after figuring out that the statute of limitations had lengthy expired.

The Sixth Circuit disagreed, discovering that Clinton and Thang might not have “plainly and expressly repudiated” Worrell’s copyright co-ownership till 2020 – when Clinton denied the validity of a 1976 recording contract that each events had acted in accordance with for many years.

The case, Property of George Bernard Worrell, Jr. v. Thang, Inc. and George Clinton, was argued on April 22, 2026, with the opinion written by Choose Karen Nelson Moore.

“Having efficiently argued in New York state courtroom that the 1976 Settlement by no means ruled their relationship with Worrell, Clinton and Thang should stay with the consequence that federal copyright regulation, not contract regulation, now controls.”

Karen Nelson Moore, US Circuit Choose

The 23-page opinion, obtained by MBW, could be learn in full right here.

The ruling doesn’t resolve the underlying query of whether or not Worrell was a co-owner of the recordings – solely that the case ought to proceed to trial.

“Having efficiently argued in New York state courtroom that the 1976 Settlement by no means ruled their relationship with Worrell, Clinton and Thang should stay with the consequence that federal copyright regulation, not contract regulation, now controls,” Choose Moore wrote.

On the middle of the dispute is a proposed 1976 contract between Thang (Clinton’s firm) and Worrell, which presupposed to grant Thang full possession of sound recordings Worrell labored on in trade for royalties.

Worrell signed the settlement, however, as a New York state courtroom later decided, Thang by no means countersigned it, rendering it invalid.

The Sixth Circuit discovered that regardless of the settlement’s invalidity, each events acted for years as if it was in impact.

Thang submitted to an audit of its books when Worrell sought royalties owed underneath the settlement’s phrases, advised third-party document firms that Worrell had signed away his possession rights, and settled a 1981 lawsuit by which Worrell alleged that Thang had didn’t pay royalties underneath the contract.

Beneath these circumstances, the courtroom discovered, Worrell might have justifiably considered Clinton’s and Thang’s failure to pay royalties as a contract dispute, not as a repudiation of his underlying copyright possession.

The property’s copyright claims have been subsequently arguably not triggered till 2020, when Clinton swore in an affidavit that Thang had by no means signed the settlement, successfully denying that any contract ruled Worrell’s rights.

The Sixth Circuit additionally rejected Clinton’s and Thang’s argument that the property lacked adequate proof to help Worrell’s joint possession of any P-Funk recordings.

The courtroom discovered that Clinton’s personal statements “contradict any suggestion that Worrell was only a session participant or employed hand,” and that his contributions as a composer, arranger, and keyboardist have been sufficiently unique to help a declare of co-authorship underneath the Copyright Act.

The Sixth Circuit’s ruling is proscribed in scope.

It covers solely recordings made throughout the potential time period of the 1976 settlement, at most, a three-year window starting on January 1, 1976.

Claims regarding recordings made earlier than 1976 or after January 1, 1979, the courtroom held, stay time-barred.

The appellate ruling arrives at a second when Clinton is engaged in a number of authorized battles over his catalog.

Earlier this month, Clinton sued UMG Recordings, alleging the label has withheld greater than USD $1.1 million in royalties throughout at the least 12 accounts for greater than three years – a freeze Clinton says UMG justified by citing the Worrell property litigation.

UMG was initially named as a defendant within the Worrell case however was dismissed in October 2023.

Clinton’s criticism towards UMG describes the royalty freeze as “financially crippling” and argues the label faces no potential legal responsibility within the Worrell litigation.

The Sixth Circuit’s resolution to revive the Worrell property’s claims might complicate that separate dispute, because the underlying copyright possession questions that the UMG lawsuit characterised as resolved are actually heading again to trial.

In March 2025, Clinton additionally filed a lawsuit towards music govt Armen Boladian and a number of other of his firms, together with Bridgeport Music and Westbound Information, accusing them of a “decades-long scheme to defraud” him of royalties and copyright possession.

That case, by which Clinton is reportedly in search of $100 million in damages, is the newest in a sequence of authorized disputes between the 2 stretching again greater than 30 years.

Worrell, born George Bernard Worrell, Jr. on April 19, 1944, in Lengthy Department, New Jersey, was a classically educated musician who attended each the New England Conservatory of Music and Juilliard.

He met Clinton whereas hanging round Clinton’s barbershop in New Jersey, and went on to work with him and his bands between 1969 and 1981.

Clinton himself has described Worrell as “a founding member and Musical Director” of Parliament-Funkadelic, and acknowledged in deposition testimony that Worrell supplied the group “with the structural basis” whereas “radically charting the course of rising keyboard expertise throughout the golden age of analog synthesis.”

P-Funk “took [their] funk and rock and roll and put Bernie’s chops in it, and… had one thing no person knew what the hell [they] have been doing,” Clinton mentioned in deposition testimony cited by the courtroom.

Worrell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame in 1997 as a part of Parliament-Funkadelic.

After leaving P-Funk within the early Nineteen Eighties, he performed with Speaking Heads for a lot of that decade and was featured of their live performance movie Cease Making Sense.

He additionally collaborated with Keith Richards, Yoko Ono, Fela Kuti, and Les Claypool, amongst others.

Worrell died on June 24, 2016, on the age of 72, after a battle with lung most cancers.

His spouse, Judie Worrell, is the consultant of his property and the plaintiff within the case.

The case has been remanded to the US District Court docket for the Japanese District of Michigan for additional proceedings.Music Enterprise Worldwide