Nina Simone And Daughter Square
Sony Music and the legal representatives of Nina Simone are mired in a bitter and convoluted legal battle over the rights to the soul legend's recordings. At stake are not only the reproduction and licensing rights to timeless pieces such as "Black is the Color," but the actual tapes of Simone's catalog.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, two major parties are involved in the legal battle: Simone's former attorney Steven Ames Brown and Sony Music itself.
Brown acquired his own partial rights to Simone's catalog in the late '80s and '90s, as part of an agreement with her. THR notes that Brwn " would be assigned 40 percent of her rights to works he "recovered." He started bringing litigation on Simone's behalf against various record companies and has claimed victories over the years. He also renegotiated an agreement with Sony in 1992 and had royalty payments for Stroud redirected."
Things appeared to be at the point of resolution in October of 2014, when Sony Music, Brown and Simone's estate came before a judge to settle the entire dispute over Simone's recorded material, and out of that meeting an agreement was drafted which, THR reports, Sony is striving to keep from going public. Yesterday, Sony lawyers reportedly told a judge "if its competitors, own recording artists and potential Sony recording artists learn about this 'atypical' settlement, it would represent a 'significant danger.'" That settlement, however, remains public and details that Sony paid Brown nearly $400,000, in addition to royalty rates, in exchange for the relinquishment of future rights to numerous Simone recordings.
Brown and the Simone estate, allegedly, did not hold up their end of the deal, and now Sony has filed new papers in a California federal court in hopes of redacting the October deal. At stake is the music giant's hopes to license and utilize Simone's music in future ventures, which Brown has reportedly waylaid. THR continues:
Brown took the position for the first time that he and the Estate had conveyed to Sony Music only the reproduction rights in the Simone masters, and no other rights. In particular, according to Brown, he and the Estate did not convey the rights to the physical embodiment of the recordings to Sony Music (nor, according to Brown, the public performance rights, the distribution rights, or any other of the 'bundle of rights' that constitutes copyright...")
Sony, it seems, may have paid Brown last October for recordings it technically already owned, and/or not received the full rights it was aiming for in the deal. The company is also in the midst of another high-profile legal battle, this one with music streaming and sharing giant Soundcloud. As the website continues to struggle in its attempt to fully monetize the music content it hosts, Sony has begun to take down tracks from its artists including Miguel, Passion Pit and Adele, specifically citing "a lack of monetization opportunities."
Read more about the Sony/Simone legal quandary at The Hollywood Reporter.
