(CelebrityAccess) – Naked Eyes, (founded by Rob Fisher and Peter J. Byrne), the synth-pop band from the 1980s, has filed a lawsuit against Reservoir Media Management for copyright infringement to the tune of $1.8 million.
According to the legal documents obtained by Digital Music News, the band had sent a notice of termination to Reservoir, ending their rights to all tracks effective May 9, 2022. According to the lawsuit, Reservoir continued to ignore the termination date and infringed on sound recordings from the group.
The complaint, filed on July 14, 2022, says, “This action is brought upon the grounds that Reservoir – without any viable or tenable legal grounds for doing so, has stubbornly and willfully refused to comply with Naked Eyes’ Notice of Termination duly served under section 203 of the Copyright Act.”
Naked Eyes is a British new wave band formed by two college friends (Byrne and Fisher) in Bath, England. Throughout their career, they had 4 US Top 40 singles including the remake of “Always Something There to Remind Me,” and “Promises, Promises.” Fisher passed away in 1999 at the age of 42 after undergoing bowel surgery for a cancer diagnosis. The lawsuit filed in the US District Court of California lists band member Peter J. Byrne and Rob Fisher’s heir, Graham Fisher, as plaintiffs.
In 1982, Naked Eyes signed a deal involving three full-length albums with EMI Records. Those rights were acquired by Reservoir in 2019. In the filing that demands a trial by jury, Naked Eyes sued Reservoir for statutory damages of $1.8 million, all gains and profits derived from infringement, and legal costs.
In the complaint, Naked Eyes claim to retain exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute sound recordings, phonorecords, interactive streams, and digital downloads through subscription and non-subscription online digital music services, effective May 9, 2022. The allegedly infringed works are currently being distributed “via digital media” and “physical phonorecords.”
