Three posthumously published songs that were purportedly sung by a vocalist other than the King of Pop were the subject of a lawsuit between Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and the Michael Jackson estate, according to rumors that surfaced a week ago. It seems like the court may have changed the settlement now.
About eight years after Vera Serova filed the action, the long-running complaint has just undergone a new development. Regarding the backdrop of the complex case, it should be noted that ardent Michael Jackson supporters have long argued that the three songs in question — Michael’s “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up,” and “Monster” — were actually recorded by another vocalist, not Michael Jackson.
Before the aforementioned case was filed, Sony Music first maintained the recordings’ veracity before changing its stance to one that is more circumspect. For its part, this complaint focused on alleged consumer deception as well as other alleged commercial infractions.
Then, in 2018, Sony Music was found not at fault in the lengthy lawsuit, and it was revealed that Katherine Jackson, the singer’s mother, thought the songs were actually recorded by someone other than her son. Producer Eddie Cascio, who also co-wrote the tunes, is one of many who has attested to the singers’ veracity.
In any case, the same fervent Michael Jackson followers who have spent more than a decade debating the issue were the first to discover early last month that the trio of works had been taken down from popular streaming services. (The songs are still missing from Spotify, which only has seven of Michael’s ten original recordings.) And as was first mentioned, a settlement agreement was reached in August, seemingly putting an end to the widely publicized litigation.
Despite this, evidence points to a potential modification of the settlement by the California Supreme Court.
Today, the proper court sent a “judgment overturned” notification to Digital Music News, though it was vague about the specifics of the change. Similar materials were also not available at the time this article was written, with the exception of a brief overview.
We remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion, including any dismissal proceedings contemplated by the parties’ settlement agreement. We, therefore, reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal insofar as it ordered struck, per the anti-SLAPP statute, those claims of Serova against Sony that remained after the trial court’s order, according to the brief summary, which appears to indicate that a lower court will consider the dismissal and the judgment re: the dismissal.
In closing, it’s important to note that MJ, the official musical of its namesake, made its Broadway debut in February. Organizers recently revealed that MJ is scheduled to visit a number of other cities in 2023 as part of an extensive North American tour, with plenty of attendees taking to social media to praise the perceived caliber of the performance.