Nina Simone in 2002. Jimi Celeste/Getty Images
Nina Simone’s heirs are going to battle against her former music label, Sony Music. According to the legendary singer’s estate, the company is operating a piracy ring. According to court documents filed by the estate, 80 albums of recorded Simone performances are being sold via iTunes and other digital venues without authorization.
This tug-of-war between the estate and Sony has been going on for a while. At one point it seemed the dispute over Simone song rights was resolved last fall, but it has now escalated.
The family claims that Sony is pirating the songs through Orchard, a distributor of independent recordings which feeds tunes to Apple’s iTunes store, Google Play, Amazon.com, and others. In March Sony acquired Orchard for $200 million.
There have been many legal fights over Simone rights, particularly between Steven Ames Brown, an attorney who represented Simone, and Andrew Stroud, Simone’s former husband, manager, and producer. “In the midst of the fighting, Sony got involved because its predecessor RCA had contracts with the singer that date back to 1966,” reports Billboard.
But last October, Sony Music, Brown, and the Simone estate came to a settlement deal. However two weeks ago, Sony Music filed a claim in court to rescind the agreement because the other parties allegedly didn’t live up to their part of the deal. According to Sony, Brown believed that only reproduction rights had been given to Sony; this would limit Sony’s use of the singer’s music.
In response, Brown and the Simone estate made copyright infringement claims against Sony and Orchard regarding more than 80 albums of recorded Nina Simone performances that have been uploaded to digital outlets without authorization.
Brown and the Simone estate also don’t like Sony’s authorization of tribute albums or how “Simone’s name and likeness” is being used for “recordings made by other recording artists.”
Brown and the Simone estate want an injunction that would stop “Orchard from exploiting Simone’s music, a declaration that Sony can’t enjoy anything of the $84 million judgment against Stroud’s estate, and additional general and exemplary damages over additional claims that cover whether Sony has breached contract,” reports Billboard.
