Family lawyers worry about a divorce client or the ex-spouse undoing a settlement agreement after the divorce and diverting money or property. Worry is well founded if a client or his/her soon-to-be-former spouse writes songs, books, scripts or otherwise creates things protected by copyright.
Here’s a question: How does a divorced spouse claim a property right that might vest 30 years after the divorce? On March 7, famed songwriter Smokey Robinson filed a declaratory judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. He asked the court to find that he had the sole right to reclaim certain copyright assets and that those rights, once reclaimed, vest solely in him. He and Claudette Robinson divorced 25 years ago. She now claims she is entitled to certain revenues from what Smokey Robinson alleges is a new and unvested property right that did not exist during their marriage.
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