Hendrix family in a Purple Haze
p2pnet.net News:- Jimi Hendrix is long dead, but his music lives on.
And so do the people who want to cash in on it, al la the venal Big Four Organized Music cartel.
Some of his best-known songs were auctioned off, yesterday, as part of the estate of Hendrix manager Michael Jeffery, who died in 1973, says the BBC.
But Hendrix’s family has threatened to take legal action over the $15m (£7.9m) sale, says the story, continuing that a company they own has said it’ll prove it has the title and rights to hits including Purple Haze and Voodoo Chile.
“A spokesman for the Seattle-based Experience Hendrix company said: ‘Whoever bought this bought themselves the right to be a litigant’,” says the Beeb,
Law suits are standard in the world of corporate music.
“Hendrix continues to sell around 600,000 albums a year worldwide,” adds the story.
He died in September, 1970.
Also See:
BBC – Hendrix family disputes song sale, October 27, 2006
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October 28th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
A legal opinion from a non lawyer.
We have several possibilities.
1. The common one. Hendrix signed away the rights to his compositions to Jeffery for the purpose of allowing Jeffery to manage the compositions by licensing them and collecting royalties. In such a case, Hendrix remained the beneficiary owner and the rights of Jeffery lasted until he died, or was somehow unable to me his contractual obligations to Hendrix. Jeffery could nor simply sell the contract to others for the purpose of said others assuming the reponsibility of mamaging the songs for Hendrix and his heirs.
2. Hendrix sold or somehow transfered his entire rights to Jeffery in exchange for someting of similar value, with full knowledge of what he was doing and the meaning of what each word in the contract meant. Meaning Hendrix received legal advise and the contract was witnessed and was not a surprise contract given Hendrix after a few drinks (a practice of sme music publishers). In such an arrangement Jeffery would not manage the compositions for the benefit of Hendrix, as Hendrix was no longer an owner, legal or beneficial.
3. The ownership controversy is about recordings only and the ownership of compositions is not in dispute. If this is the case, the following comments do not apply.
Let us assume that what Hendrix did was to assign the rights for mangement purposes of compositions to Jeffery and Hendrix remained the beneficial owner. Let us assume that a contract clause allowed Jeffery to assign (in a responsible contractual manner, it is implied) the same rights he had to third parties so that such third parties could also exploit the compositions in their market area, such as Europe. Such clause could not allow Jefferys to simply sell the contract (and the compositions) so that he became detached from the reponsibilities of managing the compositions for Hendrix and for collecting royalties.
Such a contract would also not allow it to be part of the Jeffery estate so that the compostion could be sold to a third party without Hendrix’s or Hendrix heir authorization. Allowing such a transfer of composition ownership could mean the death of the compositions if they are acquired by a music publisher that has no idea how to market the compositions and to make matters worse is located in a tyny legal haven island. Imagine if a Jefferey heir whose only experience is running a car wash is the new owner of the composition? Surely the cash flow of the compositions will dry up very fast because the car wash operator either knows nothing about promoting the compositions or how to collect royalties or how to maintain the royalty payment accounting.
Even though the tranfer of composition assignment contracts by music publishers seems to be a common and illegal (in my opinion) practice, and the beneficial owners do not benefit from the sale price of those transfers no one that I know, including the affected composers, questions the transfers or do not know what to do about it. Copyright attorneys (I have discovered) take a wrong position on the matter as if their loyalty is for the benefit of the music publishers (where the money is) and not to the creators of music.
The bottom line if the controversy is the ownership of compositions: Unles Hendrix made an outright transfer of his compositions to Jeffery the rights the compositions belong 100 percent to the Hendrix heirs. Transfer of compositions from one publisher to another without the authorization of the beneficial owner is both illegal and immoral. Just an opinion.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com