Overview
- Judge Edwin Johnson rejected claims by companies for Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell against Sony Music after a High Court ruling on Tuesday.
- The court held that the 1966 recording agreement gave producers Michael Jeffery and Chas Chandler the copyright in the recordings worldwide with no time or territorial limits.
- The judge said modern formats like downloads and streaming were not foreseen in 1966 yet the contract’s wording was clear enough to cover all delivery methods.
- He also found the estates’ demands were blocked by releases the musicians signed in the early 1970s that stated their compensation claims were fully settled.
- Sony and Experience Hendrix said the decision averts a wave of retrospective royalty suits and lets them keep exploiting the Jimi Hendrix Experience catalog, which the heirs first challenged in 2021 and which the court addressed in a seven-day trial last December in a 140-page judgment.