Don’t Out-Funk the System, Or the System Funks Back

On May 27, 2026, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the opinion in Estate of Worrell v. Thang, Inc.¹ The case involved the estate of legendary Parliament-Funkadelic (P-Funk) keyboardist/arranger Bernie Worrell against P-Funk leader George Clinton and his company, Thang, Inc., in a copyright infringement suit.

For decades, the parties operated under an agreement purportedly executed in 1976. This agreement specified that Worrell assigned all his rights in the band’s iconic sound recordings to Thang, Inc. in exchange for ongoing royalties. Over the years, Worrell routinely complained about unpaid royalties. Worrell passed away in 2016, and in 2019, his estate sued Thang, Inc. in New York state court for breach of contract. However, Thang and Clinton successfully overcame the breach of contract claim by revealing a stunning technicality: Thang, Inc. had never actually signed the 1976 Agreement. Because the agreement was deemed legally invalid, the estate changed its legal argumentation. In 2022, it filed a federal case claiming that since the 1976 copyright transfer agreement was invalid, Worrell was actually a legal co-owner of the copyrights as a co-author of the music, and requested an accounting of all past royalties. The federal court sitting in Flint, Michigan, threw out the copyright claim on summary judgment, stating that the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations had long since passed.

The Sixth Circuit reversed, which revived the estate’s lawsuit. The court ruled that because the parties had acted for decades as if an agreement governed their rights, there was a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Clinton and Thang had ever “plainly and expressly” rejected Worrell’s copyright ownership prior to 2020. The issue on appeal was when the statute of limitations began to run for the estate’s copyright ownership claim.

Under the Copyright Act, civil actions must be brought within three years after the infringement occurs, or when it is reasonably discovered.² Unlike an infringement claim, which can accrue with every individual infringement, a claim of copyright ownership or authorship only accrues once.

The Sixth Circuit heavily leaned on the doctrine of plain and express repudiation. This rule dictates that the three-year clock does not start ticking until one party clearly, unambiguously, and expressly rejects or denies the other party’s claim of copyright co-ownership.³ Clinton and Thang argued that because they failed to pay Worrell royalties for decades, he should have de facto known they denied his ownership rights, making his claim decades overdue.

However, the Sixth Circuit pointed out for forty years, Worrell did not claim copyright ownership because he assumed he had legally transferred it away via the 1976 Agreement in exchange for contractual royalties. Logically, he believed he was fighting a contract dispute, not a copyright dispute. It was not until 2020 when Clinton and Thang successfully argued in court that the 1976 Agreement was invalid that Worrell’s estate was suddenly alerted to the fact that his original copyright ownership had actually never been transferred away.

Thus, the Sixth Circuit ruled that a reasonable jury could find that the defendants did not “plainly and expressly repudiate” Worrell’s underlying copyright ownership until that 2020 revelation. By blowing up the agreement, Clinton accidentally opened the door for a much more massive copyright ownership claim. Furthermore, the court found plenty of evidence – including Clinton’s own historical statements praising Worrell’s unique “sonic stew” and musical direction – to create a triable issue over whether Worrell qualified as a joint author.

The Sixth Circuit remanded the case back to the district court to determine whether the Worrell estate is, in fact, a co-owner of the P-Funk catalog.

This case serves as a warning to labels, publishers, and artists alike. Repudiation must be crystal clear: simply refusing to pay someone or ignoring complaints does not automatically start the three-year copyright ownership clock.

This blog posting is for informational purposes only. If you have a specific issue or question related to this case, copyright, infringement, or I.P. in general, please contact Yonaxis I.P. Law Group.

Footnotes

1. ___F.4th___, Case No. 25-1863 (6th Cir. May 27, 2026) ↩

2. See Starz Ent., LLC v. MGM Domestic Television Distrib., LLC, 39 F.4th 1236, 1244 (9th Cir. 2022). ↩

3. See Zuill v. Shanahan, 80 F.3d 1366, 1369 (9th Cir. 1996); see also Aalmuhammed v. Lee, 202 F.3d 1227, 1230-31 (9th Cir. 2000). ↩