Former Jimi Hendrix collaborators go legal over Experience catalogue

completemusicupdate.com:

The estates of Jimi Hendrix’s one-time collaborators have sued Sony Music UK accusing the major – as the licensee of the Hendrix catalogue – of copyright infringement, while also seeking allegedly unpaid royalties.We knew this dispute was brewing, because last month the Hendrix estate and Sony went to court in New York seeking a declaratory judgement that agreements reached in the 1970s with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell – the other two members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience – were still valid and enforceable.Those agreements were negotiated in the years after Hendrix’s death in 1970.

In them, Redding and Mitchell basically gave up any copyright or royalty claims in relation to recordings made by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in return for “significant monetary consideration”.

The so called ‘release agreements’ also included a commitment to never sue the Hendrix estate or its successors.In its legal filing last month, the Hendrix estate and Sony stressed that neither Redding nor Mitchell ever raised any issues with those agreements prior to their deaths in 2003 and 2008 respectively.

And, indeed, at various points they actually collaborated with the companies run by the Hendrix estate on different projects, suggesting there were no grievances between the musicians and the estate.However, late last year two UK-based limited companies representing the estates of Redding and Mitchell sent a cease-and-desist letter to the London office of Sony Music.