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Bob Marley

WENN

The family of reggae legend Bob Marley has lost a lawsuit seeking ownership of his most famous tracks.

Executives at UMG Recordings were declared the rightful owners of copyrights to five albums that Marley recorded between 1973 and 1977 for Island Records.

The decision, which came down in Manhattan on Friday, is a defeat for Marley’s widow, Rita, and nine children, who had sought to recover millions of dollars in damages over UMG’s effort to “exploit” what they called “the quintessential Bob Marley sound recordings.”

The albums in the haul include “Catch a Fire,” “Natty Dread” and “Exodus” and were all recorded with Marley’s band the Wailers.

Watch: Bob Marley

Marley died of cancer in 1981, at age 36.

The Marley family accused UMG of intentionally withholding royalties from them and ignoring a 1995 agreement assigning them rights under the original recording agreements.

UMG also was accused of failing to consult with the family on key licensing decisions, including the use of Marley’s music as ringtones on AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile phones, court papers show.

But U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that Bob Marley’s recordings were “works made for hire” as defined under U.S. copyright law, entitling UMG to be designated the owner of those recordings, for both the initial 28-year copyright terms and for renewals.

“Each of the agreements provided that the sound recordings were the ‘absolute property’ of Island,” Cote wrote. “Whether Marley would have recorded his music even if he had not entered the recording agreements with Island is beside the point.”

She said it was irrelevant that Marley might have maintained artistic control over the recording process. What mattered, she said, was that Island had a contractual “right” to accept or reject what he produced.

Cote also denied the family’s request for a ruling upholding its claims over digital downloads, citing ambiguity in a 1992 royalties agreement.

She directed the parties to enter court-supervised settlement talks and scheduled an Oct. 29 conference.

msn

Who Jah Bless No Man Curse.” – Bob Marley , Who The Cap Fits

Tupac=Bob Marley borrowed from the Liberator Magazine

Rest In Beats is a film project dedicated to chronicling the history of, and changes in, the art and commerce of music. Members of Rest In Beats regularly contribute to The Liberator. [restinbeats.com]

My man posted this on fbook. I saw it before, but it definitely resonates when you, retrospectively, think of the “icons” in today’s music. Im not confident that anyone in popular music right now is as in-tune with themselves, their actions, the times, and their surroundings as much as Tupac Shakur was. Does that deem today’s artists cowardice? Is it because they’re pop? Tupac’s music matriculated in and out of pop culture. Is fear a safe argument? Or that today’s artists are simply uninformed?

Not to get all scientific, but music has always been known as an ancient medium used to support, strengthen, and transform peoples energies… especially in times of despair, such as, uh, now…during a recession, depression, wave of unemployment, endless war, and of course all of the other things that a sociologist can assure will manifest as a result of a society being struck by the aforementioned conditions.

I remember in high school reading about scientists being able to test the effects on plant growth in an environment where music is played and an environment where there is no music. After numerous tests, it was concluded that the plants exposed to music grew quicker, or proved to carry stronger growth patterns than the plants unexposed to music…of course im sure the plants were watered at the same rate, shared an equivalent light intensity.

Applying this to human beings, classical music is said to enhance mathematical apprehension, but there is an increased complexity when considering what’s actually being verbalized, because we’re then dealing with more than just sound. The sound is more organized and language creates a reality where two sounds can sound the same but mean two entirely different things. Songs are mantras. Some may prove uplifting, others destructive. Its all perception. It all can be dependent on who’s listening, or what type of plant is growing. Thats the benefit of being a superior species, I guess. Not tryin to ‘drop science’ here, Im just saying. What are we listening too?

As critical as American media and the black bourgeoisie can be about Tupac, its no question that the guy was not only incredibly intelligent but threateningly prophetic. I was 12 when he died and swore his death was a result of “gangster rap violence”… it rattled my thinking when an elder head whispered to me, “They killed him because he was the next Bob Marley…he was going to be the next Malcolm”. …almost 10yrs later and in college, i began to see what that really meant.

You know I got a firm belief in the power of questioning. I think man’s ability to question separates her/him from any other known life source, NOT because s/he is upright…someone can still play the upright to decide what sound its going to make and when So if I do get inked up, it’ll prolly look something like this:

“How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?”

Its just a question, but we all know some of the most critical lives in the history of civilization were taken simply due to exercising their innate, God-given, human-survival impulse to question.