Ooh, Foxy Lawsuit

November 21, 2006, 8:18 am
Ooh, Foxy Lawsuit
Posted by Peter Lattman
When the Law Blog attended an intellectual property auction in Lower Manhattan last month, we witnessed an anonymous bidder pay $15 million for the rights to rock legend Jimi Hendrix’s songs. After the sale, we talked to some music industry types in attendance, who expressed shock over the $15 million price tag given a huge legal cloud they said hung over the rights to his music. Said one guy: “Someone just bought the rights to a lawsuit.”
He was right. The New York Law Journal reports that on Nov. 6, a federal judge in Manhattan granted the Hendrix estate’s request for a preliminary injunction and attachment in its attempt to block the sale. Judge Lewis Kaplan found the estate was likely to prevail on the merits of its claim that it owns the songs.
Judge Kaplan put it nicely: With his untimely death in 1970 at the age of 27, Hendrix “left a body of musical works and world of controversy.” Hendrix’s catalog was put up for sale by the estate of the rocker’s former manager, Michael Frank Jeffery, even though they had long been embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with Hendrix family.
Steve Szczepanski, an IP partner at Foley & Lardner not involved, told the NYLJ that if the bidder asserts his ownership of the songs, the parties will have to review all of the contracts that Hendrix made during his career. “The buyer obviously knows this and thinks [it] has a chance of being successful after doing this.”
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Isn’t it great that lawyers have now found yet another way to bill the bejesus out of this estate, now after 36 years of appreciation of these unique music assets?What have been the costs of the “long” and “bitter legal dispute with the Hendrix family”?Now we can have another wave of litigation.Where is my barf bag? Will someone please get me a new one.Mr. Lattman, don’t you think the law blog should send a reasonable supply of barf bags to all WSJ subscribers who actively read this blog?Or at least a warning?
Comment by Isn't it Great that Lawyers can Now Loot this Estate After 36 Years of Appreciation - November 21, 2006 at 2:19 pm
What do you think should happen without the lawyers? Throw the suit out? Tell both parties to go away? One paid $15 million and the other thinks they already own it. I don’t see how a lawsuit can be avoided, unless you are suggesting that they both lose by sharing the rights to the music?
Comment by Not as dumb as the previous guy - November 21, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Perhaps my point wasn’t clear enough. It would appear that a long term, estate depleting litigation worty of the wrath of Charles Dickens himself (read: Bleak House) has been going on for some time with respect to this complex mix of music assets of a man now disceased for 36 years.That “Lawyer”-intensive process has apparently not resulting in “finality” for anyone and certainly has not resulted in the clear establishment of title for anyone to the items in question.As I see it, the lack of finality having been achieved can be blamed on a legal system which promotes protracted disputes for the primary purpose of feeding lawyers over extended periods of time.Your system is broken because it can’t reconcile its obligations to society with its desire to feed bloated lawyers under the guise of legitimate disputes.Got it now?Or do you think that the assets of all members of the human race exist to pay for legal fees relating to any absurd claim that any lawyer can cook up?Americans are tired of having their estates in death — and their estates in life (divorce) — eaten by you guys.Americans are looking for a better way. One which doesn’t put the interests of 1.1 million fee-mongering and often “dumb” lawyers ahead of 299 million non-lawyer citizens.Is that clear enough?
Comment by I am the previous guy - November 21, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Lawyers don’t sue people. People sue people.
Comment by AMK - November 22, 2006 at 12:57 am