Noel Redding Estate Ltd & Anor v Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited

A recording agreement may transfer copyright ownership and grant a continuing consent to exploit recorded performances, including by methods developed after the agreement. The relevant question is the objective construction of the agreement and the scope of the consent, not the later existence of particular statutory rights.

Pre-existing agreements and arrangements may preserve their effect under the transitional provisions governing performers’ property rights, but those provisions do not enlarge a consent which was not sufficiently wide. Regulation 31 of the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 1996 is confined to new rights in relation to the particular authorised copy, although it may apply to tangible or intangible copies.

On the facts, the claims were also barred by releases and New York discontinuances with prejudice.

The claimants, successors in title to Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, alleged ownership of shares in copyright in recordings made by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and infringement of performers’ property rights in their performances. Sony denied liability, relying on the 1966 recording agreement, a chain of title, transitional provisions, releases and discontinuances arising from earlier New York proceedings, and further equitable defences.

The court tried liability after a split-trial order. It considered who first owned the recording copyrights, whether the recording agreement created transferable consents covering later forms of exploitation, the effect of sections 180(3), 182A–182CA and regulations 27 and 31, and the effect under New York law of the releases and discontinuances. The court also addressed the alternative defences and joinder issues.

1. Copyright ownership. Under section 12 of the Copyright Act 1956, the Producers were the makers and commissioners of the recordings. Clause 6(i) of the Recording Agreement independently provided that they should have the copyright throughout the world in the recordings. The Copyright Claim therefore failed.
2. Consent to exploitation. Clause 6(ii), read with clauses 6(iii) and (v), was sufficiently wide to constitute a clear and explicit consent to all acts of exploitation which would otherwise infringe the performers’ property rights. The words “by any method now known or hereafter to be known” included digital downloading and streaming. The consent was not time-limited and was capable of assignment.
3. Chain of title and transitional provisions. The Defendant established a chain of title from the Producers to Experience and then to the Defendant. The consent was an agreement and arrangement within section 180(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and regulations 27(2) and 32(2). The Defendant’s acts were done in pursuance of it. The transitional provisions preserved the consent but did not create or enlarge it.
4. Regulation 31. Regulation 31 of the 1996 Regulations applies only to the particular copy authorised before commencement; it does not confer authority to make further copies. It can apply to tangible and intangible copies. The Defendant’s alternative Regulation 31 argument therefore failed, although the Consent independently disposed of the PPR Claim.
5. Releases and discontinuances. Applying New York law, the Releases were sufficiently broad to cover future exploitation, later intellectual-property rights, worldwide rights and modern delivery methods. Their benefits were assignable and passed to Experience. The discontinuances with prejudice engaged the transactional approach to res judicata and precluded claims which were litigated, could have been litigated, or were contemplated by the associated settlements. They therefore provided additional free-standing defences.
6. Alternative defences and joinder. On the assumed alternative hypotheses, no implied licence, estoppel, laches, delay or abuse of process was established. The claims were not improperly constituted by the absence of Experience as a party.
7. Disposition. The Copyright Claim and the PPR Claim failed and were dismissed. Consequential matters were left for further hearing.

The judgment records earlier interlocutory decisions in the same litigation, including [2024] EWHC 128 (Ch) and the Court of Appeal decision at [2025] EWCA Civ 66. Those decisions were not under appeal in this trial and are excluded from the cited-case treatment model.