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Battle over Jimi's songs


StoneMtn

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Battle over Jimi's songs

October 27, 2006 02:30pm

A PRIVATE bidder paid $US15 million (almost $A20 million) for the rights to hit songs by U.S. rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix at an auction yesterday.

But a company owned by the musician's family said it will sue to prove it owns the songs.

The rights, title, and interest to songs including Hey Joe, Purple Haze, Voodoo Child, and Foxy Lady, were sold over the telephone in New York by the estate of Michael Frank Jeffrey, Hendrix's one-time manager.

Hendrix, who was born in Seattle, died in 1970 at the age of 27 in London, after choking on his own vomit.

About 600,000 of his albums are still sold annually.

Jeffrey died in a plane crash three years later. Fourteen charities based in Britain, including the Asthma Research Council, the British Heart Foundation and the Kings College Hospital are the beneficiaries of Jeffrey's estate.

"Whoever bought this bought themselves the right to be a litigant," said Bob Merlis, a spokesman for Experience Hendrix.

The Seattle-based company is owned by members of Hendrix's family. "It will be contested instantly," he added.

Experience Hendrix says it owns all rights to the music, and recordings of the guitarist.

The auctioneer, the auctions division of Chicago-based merchant bank Ocean Tomo, declined to comment on the ownership of rights to the songs.

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Yet another argument in favour of unbridled music piracy.

I think it's more an argument in favour of very careful negotiations of the rights/ownership of creative work, and of the necessity for a well set up estate to administer the rights/ownership in case of the death of the owner(s).

Aloha,

Brad

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Yet another argument in favour of unbridled music piracy.

I think it's more an argument in favour of very careful negotiations of the rights/ownership of creative work' date=' and of the necessity for a well set up estate to administer the rights/ownership in case of the death of the owner(s).

Aloha,

Brad[/quote']

Yet another argument in favour of unbridled use of lawyers.

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Yet another argument in favour of unbridled use of lawyers.

How about arguments for the bridled use of lawyers? Maybe require lawyers to have two rates, a low one for unbridled use, and higher one that requires them to be bridled when they're working for you. (A lawyer could, with approval of his/her law society, have the rate scales reversed if he/she so desired.)

Aloha,

Brad

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