1920s Composer Helped Bring Down DOMA

Tin Pan Alley composer B.G. “Buddy” DeSylva couldn’t havepossibly realized the effect he would have on American law when he slept withhis secretary.  DeSylva’s adulteryspawned a Supreme Court case, which Justice Kennedy recently used to strikedown DOMA.

In DeSylva v. Ballentine, Buddy had a child with hissecretary but stayed with his wife. After his death, his widow claimed his illegitimate son had no right torenew the copyright of the deceased author, because the 1909 Copyright Act gavethis right to the author’s “widow, widower, or children of the author.”  His widow claimed “children” meant onlylegitimate children, but the Supreme Court disagreed, saying California lawapplied because there was no federal law of domestic relations.  Therefore, his illegitimate child qualifiedunder the California law, which allowed illegitimate children to inherit if thefather acknowledged them.

Using this logic, the Supreme Court recently recognized thesame-sex marriage of Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, finding because “there is nofederal law of domestic relations,” the federal government must defer to thestates when defining marriage. Therefore, DOMA could not stand, because it allowed the federalgovernment to ignore that deference.

See David Kluft, “Why Don’t You Marry the Girl?”: How the1909 Copyright Act Helped Bring Down DOMA, Trademark and Copyright LawBlog, July 9, 2013.