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Thread started 11/13/18 10:25pm

BartVanHemelen

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"Prince Estate Awarded $4 Million Judgment Against Late Singer’s Producer"

© Bart Van Hemelen
This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
It is not authorized by Prince or the NPG Music Club. You assume all risk for
your use. All rights reserved.
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Reply #1 posted 11/13/18 11:15pm

JorisE73

That is good news!

If he would have won he would probably milk those recordings Pepe Willie style.

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Reply #2 posted 11/13/18 11:54pm

themend

I think this is bad news. Do you think we would ever have got to hear that stuff without Boxhill? There's no chance of anyone else out there doing the same now. "Free the music.." rolleyes
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Reply #3 posted 11/14/18 1:16am

embmmusic

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It may have been their legal right to do so, but this is definitely not good news.

Check out The Collector's Guide to Prince on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/p...4ldzxwlEuy
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Reply #4 posted 11/14/18 1:24am

andrewm7

More litigation to stop us hearing music neutral nothing much to celebrate there. Thank you for posting the link though Bart.

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Reply #5 posted 11/14/18 1:28am

databank

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Is Ian Boxill rich or does this mean his life is over?

Mine would if I had to pay 4M buck to anyone.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #6 posted 11/14/18 1:38am

JorisE73

Now the Estate can release the original untampered recordings instead of Boxill's tampered and 'finished without Prince's consent or approval' versions that everyone already has.

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Reply #7 posted 11/14/18 1:45am

Dandroppedadim
e

JorisE73 said:

Now the Estate can release the original untampered recordings instead of Boxill's tampered and 'finished without Prince's consent or approval' versions that everyone already has.



I was under the impression the tracks weren’t finished in the first place, and Prince would probably of added strings etc anyway. I’d still be happy to hear the untampered versions, but they may actually sound a bit rough in comparison to the Boxhill mixes.
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Reply #8 posted 11/14/18 1:50am

JorisE73

Dandroppedadime said:

JorisE73 said:

Now the Estate can release the original untampered recordings instead of Boxill's tampered and 'finished without Prince's consent or approval' versions that everyone already has.

I was under the impression the tracks weren’t finished in the first place, and Prince would probably of added strings etc anyway. I’d still be happy to hear the untampered versions, but they may actually sound a bit rough in comparison to the Boxhill mixes.


If the Estate would allow that then what would stop them from hiring current producers to "finish" unfinished vault tracks?
Just imagine Timbaland "finishing" some vault tracks with guest raps by Missy Elliot or Justin Timberlake, or that Black Eyed Peas guy "finishing" tracks by adding Fergie and making songs a duet. The thought alone of this happening makes me sick to my stomach so I'm glad the Estate got these "finished" tracks back.

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Reply #9 posted 11/14/18 2:10am

coldasice

I always wondered why people cared about these songs so much. I never even listened to them & never considered them Prince tracks once I heard they were unfinished originally. Besides if Prince cared for them he woulda kept them in his possession.
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Reply #10 posted 11/14/18 2:34am

OperatingTheta
n

coldasice said:

I always wondered why people cared about these songs so much. I never even listened to them & never considered them Prince tracks once I heard they were unfinished originally. Besides if Prince cared for them he woulda kept them in his possession.


These songs were originally intended by Prince for the Planet Earth album and were titled 'Man Opera'.

I don't buy Boxhill's assertion they were 'unfinished'. He added production so he could credit himself as 'co-producer' and justify the release.

Raw or not, I'd still like to hear the original versions, without Boxhill's additions and alterations.
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Reply #11 posted 11/14/18 2:39am

Vannormal

JorisE73 said:

That is good news!

If he would have won he would probably milk those recordings Pepe Willie style.

-

I think this is a thick layer of shame on The Estate !

The amount of money awarded is utterly overexagerated.

Come on ! How many units were sold officially of 'Deliverance', honestly ?

Sure you cannot release stuff like that.

Looks like this is what The Estate/family - oh and probably their lawyers even more - actually loves; grabbing money.

-

[Edited 11/14/18 2:42am]

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves. And wiser people so full of doubts" (Bertrand Russell 1872-1972)
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Reply #12 posted 11/14/18 2:57am

darkroman

This is very sad indeed.

Prince would often not recognise nor credit the work that other people contributed to the music. I am sure this producer gave a lot and probably received little or nothing in return.

The Estate should have come to an agreement to continue to release the recordings in a ligitimate manner. They should be working with people and not against them.

I hope the appeal reduces the amount awarded.

After all, he could just pay $1 per week as I am sure the Estate wouldn't want to see this man homeless.

sad


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Reply #13 posted 11/14/18 3:44am

SuperFurryAnim
al

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Courts may as well make this ruling 10 trillion. You can't get blood out of a stone.

What are you outraged about today? CNN has not told you yet?
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Reply #14 posted 11/14/18 4:34am

Purplestar88

Don't feel sorry for this producer. He had no business releasing the song and now it has back fired. He would have never release the song if Prince was alive. And can't believe people buy that this guy was not paid for his work or whatever. You complaing now that your behind got sued and Prince is not hear to defend himself.

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Reply #15 posted 11/14/18 5:14am

udo

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$1M in fees!?

What efficieny does that display?

Or do we simply see some inflated figures?

Pills and thrills and daffodils will kill... If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.
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Reply #16 posted 11/14/18 7:01am

SchlomoThaHomo

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4M is ridiculous. That's what Prince made off of the sales of Purple Rain for God's sake, according to him!

I may be in the minority here but, the Deliverance project is the only posthumously released music that I feel is up to his standard, and worthy of release. The Purple Rain set with the embarrassingly varying audio quality, and the Piano and Microphone 83 set, with the outright SHIT audio quality, both fell very very short.

"That's when stars collide. When there's space for what u want, and ur heart is open wide."
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Reply #17 posted 11/14/18 7:31am

RodeoSchro

OperatingThetan said:

coldasice said:
I always wondered why people cared about these songs so much. I never even listened to them & never considered them Prince tracks once I heard they were unfinished originally. Besides if Prince cared for them he woulda kept them in his possession.
These songs were originally intended by Prince for the Planet Earth album and were titled 'Man Opera'.

I don't buy Boxhill's assertion they were 'unfinished'. He added production so he could credit himself as 'co-producer' and justify the release.

Raw or not, I'd still like to hear the original versions, without Boxhill's additions and alterations.



I agree. I've listened to this stuff a lot and everything I hear sounds like Prince.

If there's stuff that ISN'T Prince, then Prince should have used this guy a lot more, because dang he was good at sounding like Prince.

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Reply #18 posted 11/14/18 7:46am

jdcxc

No outside collaborators should be allowed to re-produce, re-write and re-release Prince music without the estate’s permission.

Boxhill was brazenly fraudulent the way he went about this. He knew the risks and liability. Civil lawsuits are expensive.

It IS great music though and really points to the wealth of P’s productivity...incredible.
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Reply #19 posted 11/14/18 7:52am

PURPLEIZED3121

WTAF! - totally OTT fine. What does he do if he can't pay it?

The Deliverance EP was / is a thing of utter beauty. If the estate & their advisors had anything resembling common sense & commercial ability they should have released it properly, fra & wide.

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Reply #20 posted 11/14/18 8:13am

sonshine

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$4 million is obscene.
It's a hurtful place, the world, in and of itself. We don't need to add to it. We all need one another. ~ PRN
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Reply #21 posted 11/14/18 8:39am

RodeoSchro

sonshine said:

$4 million is obscene.



Maybe not.

This award was first levied by an arbitrator, which means a jury was not involved. It appears from the article that a judge has confirmed the arbitrator's ruling, but hasn't signed the judgement yet.

$960,287.65 was awarded for legal costs and other fees. When you ask for legal fees from the other side, you generally have to submit your paperwork proving how much you charged. It'd better be accurate because if it isn't, then you (the attorney) can be sanctioned and that is a very bad thing.

Now, you may say you are a $500/hour lawyer when you're really a $150/hour lawyer but that one is usually defendable. The hours you say you put in? Those had better be very well documented.

The remaining $3 million is classified as an "award". Nowhere in the article did I see that any of that was classified as punitive damages. A punitive damage award is a "penalty" assessed to the loser as a way of scaring him and others from trying the same thing again with another person. I don't think an arbitrator can even assess punitive damages.

So if none of the $3 million was punitive, then it had to be actual damages. That means the Prince estate either had to show: (1) that's how much Boxhill actually made from selling "Deliverance"; or (2) that's how much the Prince estate actually lost because of the sales Boxhill made.

Whichever it is, it's pretty hard to just make up a number out of thin air and say, "That's my actual damage". In a case like this, both sides would probably have hired expert witnesses who would have substantiated their calculation of the money derived from Boxhill's sales of "Deliverance".

That's been my experience, anyway.

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Reply #22 posted 11/14/18 8:59am

databank

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RodeoSchro said:

sonshine said:

$4 million is obscene.



Maybe not.

This award was first levied by an arbitrator, which means a jury was not involved. It appears from the article that a judge has confirmed the arbitrator's ruling, but hasn't signed the judgement yet.

$960,287.65 was awarded for legal costs and other fees. When you ask for legal fees from the other side, you generally have to submit your paperwork proving how much you charged. It'd better be accurate because if it isn't, then you (the attorney) can be sanctioned and that is a very bad thing.

Now, you may say you are a $500/hour lawyer when you're really a $150/hour lawyer but that one is usually defendable. The hours you say you put in? Those had better be very well documented.

The remaining $3 million is classified as an "award". Nowhere in the article did I see that any of that was classified as punitive damages. A punitive damage award is a "penalty" assessed to the loser as a way of scaring him and others from trying the same thing again with another person. I don't think an arbitrator can even assess punitive damages.

So if none of the $3 million was punitive, then it had to be actual damages. That means the Prince estate either had to show: (1) that's how much Boxhill actually made from selling "Deliverance"; or (2) that's how much the Prince estate actually lost because of the sales Boxhill made.

Whichever it is, it's pretty hard to just make up a number out of thin air and say, "That's my actual damage". In a case like this, both sides would probably have hired expert witnesses who would have substantiated their calculation of the money derived from Boxhill's sales of "Deliverance".

That's been my experience, anyway.

How does a lawyer document their working hours to either client or judge? They're working the case alone in their office, they could just as well be playing video games or working on another case.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #23 posted 11/14/18 9:43am

RodeoSchro

databank said:

RodeoSchro said:



Maybe not.

This award was first levied by an arbitrator, which means a jury was not involved. It appears from the article that a judge has confirmed the arbitrator's ruling, but hasn't signed the judgement yet.

$960,287.65 was awarded for legal costs and other fees. When you ask for legal fees from the other side, you generally have to submit your paperwork proving how much you charged. It'd better be accurate because if it isn't, then you (the attorney) can be sanctioned and that is a very bad thing.

Now, you may say you are a $500/hour lawyer when you're really a $150/hour lawyer but that one is usually defendable. The hours you say you put in? Those had better be very well documented.

The remaining $3 million is classified as an "award". Nowhere in the article did I see that any of that was classified as punitive damages. A punitive damage award is a "penalty" assessed to the loser as a way of scaring him and others from trying the same thing again with another person. I don't think an arbitrator can even assess punitive damages.

So if none of the $3 million was punitive, then it had to be actual damages. That means the Prince estate either had to show: (1) that's how much Boxhill actually made from selling "Deliverance"; or (2) that's how much the Prince estate actually lost because of the sales Boxhill made.

Whichever it is, it's pretty hard to just make up a number out of thin air and say, "That's my actual damage". In a case like this, both sides would probably have hired expert witnesses who would have substantiated their calculation of the money derived from Boxhill's sales of "Deliverance".

That's been my experience, anyway.

How does a lawyer document their working hours to either client or judge? They're working the case alone in their office, they could just as well be playing video games or working on another case.



True. Usually the bill contains a description of the work product or activity associated with the billing. And if someone gets really mad, the judge can make the attorney produce all his billings for a particular time, in order to see if he billed multiple clients for the same time period, etc.

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Reply #24 posted 11/14/18 9:48am

databank

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RodeoSchro said:

databank said:

How does a lawyer document their working hours to either client or judge? They're working the case alone in their office, they could just as well be playing video games or working on another case.



True. Usually the bill contains a description of the work product or activity associated with the billing. And if someone gets really mad, the judge can make the attorney produce all his billings for a particular time, in order to see if he billed multiple clients for the same time period, etc.

Still, I find it crazy that one can charge by the hour if clients have no way of knowing. It involes a lot of trust. I can't think of any other job where it's like that. Normally if you work unsupervized you charge fixed fees for specific tasks/results.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #25 posted 11/14/18 9:51am

RodeoSchro

databank said:

RodeoSchro said:



True. Usually the bill contains a description of the work product or activity associated with the billing. And if someone gets really mad, the judge can make the attorney produce all his billings for a particular time, in order to see if he billed multiple clients for the same time period, etc.

Still, I find it crazy that one can charge by the hour if clients have no way of knowing. It involes a lot of trust. I can't think of any other job where it's like that. Normally if you work unsupervized you charge fixed fees for specific tasks/results.



LOL, yeah. But remember - in America, lawyers make all the laws!

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Reply #26 posted 11/14/18 10:07am

TheEnglishGent

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JorisE73 said:

Now the Estate can release the original untampered recordings instead of Boxill's tampered and 'finished without Prince's consent or approval' versions that everyone already has.


Does anyone think the estate will do that?

RIP sad
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Reply #27 posted 11/14/18 10:16am

RodeoSchro

TheEnglishGent said:

JorisE73 said:

Now the Estate can release the original untampered recordings instead of Boxill's tampered and 'finished without Prince's consent or approval' versions that everyone already has.


Does anyone think the estate will do that?




Maybe in Year 99 of Tyka's 100 Year Plan. sad

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Reply #28 posted 11/14/18 10:18am

JoeyCococo

SchlomoThaHomo said:

4M is ridiculous. That's what Prince made off of the sales of Purple Rain for God's sake, according to him!

I may be in the minority here but, the Deliverance project is the only posthumously released music that I feel is up to his standard, and worthy of release. The Purple Rain set with the embarrassingly varying audio quality, and the Piano and Microphone 83 set, with the outright SHIT audio quality, both fell very very short.



Agree...Deliverance waa a great song and release. The sound quality was fantastic. I also agree the estate needed to hammer anyone who would dare to release Prince's music this way. Many associates have unreleased material and this could have turned into the wild wild west of similar releases a message had to be sent.
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Reply #29 posted 11/14/18 11:51am

littlemissG

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OperatingThetan said:

coldasice said:

I always wondered why people cared about these songs so much. I never even listened to them & never considered them Prince tracks once I heard they were unfinished originally. Besides if Prince cared for them he woulda kept them in his possession.


These songs were originally intended by Prince for the Planet Earth album and were titled 'Man Opera'.

I don't buy Boxhill's assertion they were 'unfinished'. He added production so he could credit himself as 'co-producer' and justify the release.

Raw or not, I'd still like to hear the original versions, without Boxhill's additions and alterations.

What source did you get the Man Opera information from?
No More Haters on the Internet.
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