Words of Wisdom from Jim 'Found Money' Morrison

"Even for those of you, like me, who did not register stories in the early years, the settlement represents found money." -- Jim Morrison, The ASJA Monthly, May 2005

The lawyers now acknowledge that their representation to the appellate court of $10.76 million in "prima facie valid claims" was way off -- and in the process tacitly acknowledge that they've misled the district and appellate courts, as well as all of us.

The reason is that the UnSettlement has a provision to trigger reductions of C Category claims -- those of subject works whose copyrights were not registered -- if total claims exceed $11.8 million. (The $18 million settlement fund has $6.2 million taken off the top for attorneys' fees and various administrative costs.) The A and B Categories (registered works) would remain untouched while C's get reduced, if necessary to zero.

In calculating "prima facie valid claims," the lawyers counted all the claims without registration documents as C's rather than A's or B's. Now they're saying never mind, in almost all cases you don't need registration documents, you just need to list valid registration numbers on the claim form. So many/most/almost all of the claims dinged for this defect will become A or B claims, and the $10.76 million figure will rise significantly.

Therefore, Jim Morrison's crowing of a year ago has been exposed as crow that must be swallowed whole, without condiments. The UnSettlement may very well be worthless to unregistereds.