Product Description

This book traces the difficulties all rockers have faced dealing with bad contracts, personnel problems, litigious fans, and crooked managers and accountants. Some of the stories told here include Elvis Presley's estate's struggle to protect its right to his name and image; the Beatles' lawsuits that kept them from issuing any new material for decades; and 2 Live Crew's battle with the Supreme Court over their right to parody an existing song.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1114048 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 263 pages

From Publishers Weekly
From management problems to copyright infringement suits and merchandising deals gone sour, rock musicians have been plagued by legal troubles since the genre's earliest days. Here, rock critic and attorney Soocher profiles some of the industry's most seminalAand flamboyantAcourtroom battles. In pithy detail, he revisits the bitter disputes that artists such as the Beatles, the Shirelles and George Michael have had with their record labels; the dramatic trial in which the heavy metal band Judas Priest was accused of inciting two teens to commit suicide; and the landmark Supreme Court case involving the First Amendment rights of the rap group 2 Live Crew. What emerges is a cautionary tale about the uneasy intersection between art and commerce in which musicians who lack business savvy are ripe for exploitation. More noteworthy is Soocher's exploration of the ways legal wranglings can have an impact on an artist's creative output, often permanently altering the dynamics of the artist/record industry relationship. A copyright infringement suit filed against Michael Jackson in 1992, for example, has left record companies increasingly hesitant to accept unsolicited material from new artists, making it harder for unknowns to break into the business. Readers unfamiliar with legal jargon may at times get bogged down in the details of courtroom proceedings, but Soocher's account of the financial and legal pitfalls into which an unsuspecting musician can stumble is an eye-opening reminder that where there is money to be made, lawsuits are sure to follow. Foreign rights, Jennifer Hayes.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Founding editor of the industry publication Entertainment Law & Finance, attorney/journalist Soocher details nine court cases to illustrate his claim that "The legal issues and lawsuits that artists and their estates become involved in can have as much impact on the music we hear as do the musicians with whom the artists work or even the songs they choose to record." While most of the cases will be familiar to even the most casual newspaper reader, Soocher goes inside the courtroom for a bird's-eye view of such issues as copyright infringement (the Elvis Presley estate), obscenity charges (2 Live Crew), and alleged suicide responsibility vs. First Amendment rights (Judas Priest). While detailing the legal and political maneuverings of both sides, Soocher is also a skilled observer of events outside the courtroom. Readable for nonlawyers and recommended for public libraries; academic and law school collections should have an interested constituency as well.?David M. Turkalo, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch. Lib., Boston
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A survey of mostly well-known lawsuits involving pop musicians, with an emphasis on forbidding legal arcana. Soocher, an entertainment lawyer and music journalist, summarizes George Michaels efforts to get out of his contract with Sony Music; Billy Joels management woes; suits against Judas Priest for including suicide-provoking backward satanic messages on a record and against Michael Jackson for plagiarism (both defendants were exonerated); the Elvis Presley estates largely successful efforts to squash unlicensed use of Elviss name and likeness; royalty- reclamation efforts by the Shirelles, Gene Pitney, and B.J. Thomas; the recently resolved quarter-century barrage of suits by the former Beatles against their record company, their managers, and one another; and two episodes involving 2 Live Crew: obscenity charges in Florida, which the rappers defeated, and a suit contesting the groups right to use a Roy Orbison sample, which resulted in a Supreme Court victory on fair-use grounds. Soocher tries to insert narrative drama in the form of quotes by people involved in the suits, but he consistently refuses to draw conclusions about the larger issues the suits raise, which leaves the reader frustrated. The Joel and Beatles chapters, in particular, are full of legal niceties of interest to few beyond the parties involved, but even the sensational 1990 Judas Priest case comes across pallidly. Colorful characters on both sides of the 2 Live Crew obscenity case, some of whom the author interviewed, liven up that chapter considerably. But when Soocher talks about the Shirelles action, he picks apart the business practices of one oldies repackager without mentioning all the other, more historically important rock pioneers with empty pockets, which leaves the story dangling out of context. Soocher is a sound legal reporter, but his courtroom tales supply little of the charismatic derring-do promised by the title. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Glad I Bought This For Class ý Very Useful
I bought this book for a course I'm taking about the music business and after reading it, I'm so glad I did. It's an easy read since it's broken into several chapters...each about a particular musician or group. The chapters tell the story of a legal battle or a deal gone terribly wrong. It illustrates the pitfalls that lay before artists when it comes to publicity, trademarks, estate planning, merchandising, copyright infringement, royalty claims, publishing, bankruptcy, and so much more. I particularly enjoyed the stories about Elvis Presley, Billy Joel, The Beatles, and Judas Priest. A terrific addition to your personal library.

So sue me!!
Nothing says "big business" like a good lawsuit or two... and here's a book that's full of them. Whether it's Billy Joel suing his brother-in-law (who was also his business manager), the Shirelles suing George Harrison, the Beatles suing each other, or some hick parents suing Judas Priest for "causing" their kids to commit suicide (even though they came from physically violent homes), it's all fun and games in the rock and roll courtroom. Most of these are fairly well-known cases, but Soocher's light-handed style lends itself to a quick read. He doesn't get hung up on minutae, and keeps the narrative down to a minimum (although conversely, he also has a genteel streak wherein he sometimes alludes to lurid incidents without fully explaining them, which can get irksome...) Censorship comes up in a few of these cases, but mostly it's all about money, money, money, with a little concern for intellectual property thrown in for good measure. Oddly enough, I found George Michael's lawsuit against Sony to be one of the more interesting chapters in this book -- maybe just because it was one of the least familiar cases. At any rate, if you want to keep your illusions about showbiz intact, you might wanna veer away from this one. If, on the other hand, you're curious about what makes a multi-million dollar contract tick, then snap it up.

Good
A better book that deals with rock legal/economic matters is ROCKONOMICS. A lot, if not most, of the Beatles stuff, for instance, that are in this book are in that book, but better written. Nonetheless, this book had stuff I hadn't known about before, and it confirms what Pete Townshend said in "Rolling Stone" when it was pointed out to him that he had been friendly with a lot of English aristocrats, "Aristocrats are supposed to be real sh**s. But I don't think I met even one who was a real sh**. Whereas, in the music business, I could introduce you to a THOUSAND sh**s! " This book is a good study of those types.