Fernando Torres-Negron v. J & N Records

In 1993, Fernando Torres-Negron (plaintiff) wrote the song Noche de Fiesta at the request of his friend, Ruben Canuelas, who was looking for new material for his band, Tempo Merenguero. Torres gave Canuelas the piece of paper on which he had written the lyrics, along with a cassette tape containing a recording of Torres singing the song. Canuelas then joined a different band, Gozadera, and recorded Noche de Fiesta with them. Antonio Rivera produced and released the resulting album entitled Bailando y Gozando con Gozadera in late 1993. Rivera paid Torres $900 in royalties as compensation for use of the song on that album. Rivera then sold the master recording of Noche de Fiesta to J & N Records Distributor, Inc. (defendant), who proceeded to release the song on three other albums. J & N did not contact Torres to request permission for use of the song on these subsequent albums, and Torres was not paid royalties or any other compensation for such use. When Torres learned of the existence of these other albums in 2001, he submitted an application for registration with the Copyright Office—for which he submitted a typed version of the lyrics and a cassette tape containing a new recording of himself singing the song—and filed suit against J & N for infringement. The district court dismissed Torres’s suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction after concluding that Torres had failed to submit a complete application for registration because he submitted a reconstruction of the song rather than a copy as required under the Copyright Act, and copyright registration was a jurisdictional prerequisite to maintain a copyright-infringement suit in federal court. Torres appealed.