Photo Credit: Leach Entertainment Features
Rick James’ estate is being hit with a federal lawsuit for stuffing three musicians who did a demo for him way back in 1979 refusing to pay up fairly ever since. The artists suing are Leroy O’Neil Jackson Jr, James Calloway, and the administrator of Aaron “Sonny” T. Davenport’s estate over his 1980 hit Big Time that is the product of three demos recorded at Blank Tapes Studios. They claim that the evening after recording the song James “expressed he was impressed with the song and said it would be perfect for his upcoming fourth album to be released with the Gordy and Motown Record label. Mr. James asked Mr. Adams to help them work out the details to ensure that “Big Time” was on Mr. James’ album titled Garden of Love.”
The arrangement that was set up was for James to receive 100% publishing rights and royalties for the first 5 years and all after that to go to the three artists. Action had to be taken against Motown records and James’ production company to receive royalties and received $4,000 in a settlement after legal fees. But payment issues have persisted since. “Since in or around 1990, Plaintiffs have made efforts to engage legal counsel to assist them with the collection of unpaid mechanical writers’ royalties only to be turned away by attorneys unwilling to represent Plaintiffs on a contingency fee basis,” the suit explained. “Finally, in or around 2020, Plaintiffs engaged attorney Charles Matlock from Chicago, Illinois, to assist them with the collection of unpaid mechanical writers’ royalties.”
The song has since been registered with the US Copyright Office in 2020 and James’ estate has released a soundtrack and documentary using the song. “Despite requests from Plaintiffs to Defendants, Plaintiffs have never received a single accounting statement nor payment for mechanical royalties for “Big Time” from Defendants. Defendants nevertheless continue to distribute and exploit the composition by releasing and distributing digital and physical phonorecords of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted work and are liable for intentional copyright infringement,” the suit reads. A temporary injunction is being sought against the estate continuing to profit off of their work and it’s for an unspecified amount in damages.
A few things are to be taken into consideration here. James was worth only about $250,000 when he died in 2004, but he did have a number of projects he was working on at the time to include Kanye West, so there likely was money coming in to be able to at least contribute to some of this back money owed these artists. We’ll be reporting on where this suit goes.
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