## Facts

- George Motola owned and co-authored the musical composition “Jeannie, Jeannie, Jeannie.”
- The band The Stray Cats re-recorded the song and commercially sold their rendition.
- The Stray Cats’ rendition modified the lyrics so that the song’s subject matter shifted from dancing to booze, parties, and sex.
- Motola sued The Stray Cats, EMI America Records, and certain other record retailers (collectively, EMI) for copyright infringement based on the altered rendition.
- Motola conceded that EMI obtained a consensual mechanical license from Motola’s copyright collections agent allowing EMI to re-record and distribute the song in exchange for royalty payments.
- Motola contended, however, that the license did not authorize the lyric changes and that the altered rendition therefore violated his copyright.
- The consensual license expressly incorporated the terms of the compulsory licensing provisions of § 115 of the Copyright Act.

## Issues

1. Whether a consensual mechanical license that expressly incorporates 17 U.S.C. § 115 authorizes a licensee to modify a song’s lyrics in a way that changes the song’s subject matter.
2. Whether releasing a re-recording with extensive lyric changes exceeds the scope of the § 115 arrangement limitation incorporated into the parties’ license and constitutes infringement.

## Decision

- The court held that the § 115 limitations incorporated into the parties’ mechanical license did not permit the kind of extensive lyric rewriting used in The Stray Cats’ rendition.
- The court concluded that changing the lyrics to shift the song’s subject matter went beyond what § 115 allows as a permissible arrangement made in connection with a licensed re-recording.
- Because the lyric changes were outside the license’s scope, the defendants’ distribution of the altered rendition constituted copyright infringement of Motola’s musical composition.
- Publicly available summaries do not specify the exact procedural posture or the specific remedies awarded.

## Legal Principles

- A mechanical license that incorporates 17 U.S.C. § 115 carries forward § 115’s limits on what the licensee may change when making and distributing a new recording of a copyrighted musical work.
- Under § 115’s arrangement limitation, a licensee may make only those changes needed to perform the work in the licensee’s style; the license does not grant open-ended permission to rewrite protected expressive elements.
- Extensive lyric changes—especially changes that shift the work’s subject matter—can exceed the scope of a § 115-limited license and result in an unauthorized derivative version of the copyrighted composition.
- When a licensee exceeds the scope of a license, distribution of the unlicensed version can give rise to copyright infringement liability.

## Conclusion

Motola v. EMI America Records treated the parties’ consensual mechanical license as constrained by the § 115 compulsory-license limits it incorporated, and the court determined that The Stray Cats’ extensive lyric rewriting—shifting the song’s subject matter from dancing to booze, parties, and sex—fell outside the license’s authorized changes and therefore infringed Motola’s copyright in the composition.


Motola v. EMI America Records, No. 82-6308-PAR (April 23, 1984)