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Forums > Associated artists & people > Did Wendy and Lisa ever sue Prince in terms of copyright?
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Thread started 10/21/11 2:09pm

Riverman37

Did Wendy and Lisa ever sue Prince in terms of copyright?

I remember reading biographies about Prince, and often it was stated that during the years 1985 and 1986 Prince offered his basic tracks to Wendy and Lisa, and they would take care of the instrumentation, the melodies and the 'colouring in' of the arrangements.

According to Wendy and Lisa it happened with hundreds of songs during that period.

When you look at the songwriting / composing-credits for the albums Around the World in a day, Parade and Sign of the times, Wendy and Lisa are just credited for a small number of songs, when i have the idea they were responsible for a lot more.

Prince is known for not giving (enough) credits for bandmembers or protegees co-written or composing his songs, so i assume many songs on the forementioned albums are co-written and co-composed by Wendy and Lisa.

I aint no Wendy and Lisa-fanatic or fan even, but I can expect Wendy and Lisa fighting copyright issues when it comes to material from that period. Did that ever happen?

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Reply #1 posted 10/21/11 2:49pm

BEAUGARDE

Hundreds? Really!

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Reply #2 posted 10/21/11 2:52pm

Riverman37

Hundreds indeed.

I aint some Wendy and Lisa-fanatic, saying Prince is nothing without them, but the girls have said themselves it was how they were working in the mid-eighties.

I can imagine that is why Princes material on Parade and parts of Sign of the Times did sound more subtle and sophisticated then before.

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Reply #3 posted 10/21/11 4:29pm

afro75

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Riverman37 said:

Hundreds indeed.

I aint some Wendy and Lisa-fanatic, saying Prince is nothing without them, but the girls have said themselves it was how they were working in the mid-eighties.

I can imagine that is why Princes material on Parade and parts of Sign of the Times did sound more subtle and sophisticated then before.

Considering that those musical works were done over a quarter century ago, proving a copyright case without previous legal documents could be difficult. I imagine a legal fight would be time-consuming and too costly to be worth it.

But it seems like they're all on good terms now, as evidenced by Prince's recent visit to W&L's studio last week.

~Using the Fat Albert emoticon 'cause no one else is... fatalbert ~
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Reply #4 posted 10/22/11 5:32pm

ladygirl99

Didnt Lisa tried to sue Prince for her baby Power Fantastic? Originally he added that song on the Hits without crediting them and they was going to take him to court then he rereleased the album but then added them on the credits.....

But maybe some Girl Broers on here can skool me this further......

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Reply #5 posted 10/27/11 12:53pm

runawayslave

THey didnt do anything to sue Prince over. Their fans insist that they wrote all this material in the mid 80s that made Prince but the historical facts simply arent there to back this fallacy.

[Edited 10/27/11 16:56pm]

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Reply #6 posted 10/27/11 1:04pm

Genesia

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Were they paid?

This would be like me trying to sue my employer for using copy they paid me to write.

We don’t mourn artists because we knew them. We mourn them because they helped us know ourselves.
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Reply #7 posted 10/27/11 1:49pm

Graycap23

Ohh lawrd..............

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Reply #8 posted 10/27/11 2:00pm

NouveauDance

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Uh-oh!

Not necessarily on topic, but to sue someone like Prince, I guess you'd have to have pretty big pockets any way - whether you thought you were going to win or lose shrug

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Forums > Associated artists & people > Did Wendy and Lisa ever sue Prince in terms of copyright?