Billboard reports that a court ruled that one of Prince’s most memorable hits, 1994’s “The Most Beautiful Girl In the World” was plagiarized from the 1983 song, “Takin’ Me To Paradise” by songwriters Bruno Bergonzi and Michele Vicino. The pair initially filed suit in 1995 after the song was released but they were ruled against.

.

.

However, the songwriters appealed, and won in 2007, as well as a final ruling which came in 2015. Now they are looking to collect the money from their favorable ruling. According to Billboard, under the latest ruling, Prince’s estate is banned from distributing “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” in Italy. The magazine also reports that the sentence must be published, at Prince’s expense, in two Italian national dailies and two specialist music magazines.

Bergonzi says that, “This has yet to happen.”

.

But one part of the deal has been realized—the songwriters have been getting paid. The Italian collecting society SIAE now recognizes Bergonzi and Vicino as the authors of “The Most Most Beautiful Girl in the World” and Bergonzi told Billboard that “we have begun to receive some royalty payments.”.

.

“The court has also ruled that we should receive compensation for ‘moral rights,’ although under the Italian legal system that doesn’t amount to a large amount of money,” he added.

Prince’s estate still has to sort out how the rest o the payments will be received.

.

.

-------------

There is a YouTube video also. It hardlly sounds like Prince's "The most beautiful girl".....I dunno, what do y'all think??

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ_ANfb3WyE

.

Read More: Prince's Estate Warring i...The World' | http://theboombox.com/pri...ck=tsmclip

[Edited 9/27/16 16:50pm]

[Edited 9/27/16 16:52pm]

Old story.

If you use the search box, you will find old threads on this topic.

Example: http://prince.org/msg/7/292657

The chorus, and perhaps the 'break- own', bear the loosest similarity to the manner of vocal delivery and break in TMBGITTW, but it is still a massively far-flung reach.

.

It should also be noted that the suit was heard and decided in the Italian judiciary, and not by an American court.

.

[Edited 9/27/16 18:44pm]

A lot of the melody is almost identical.

TrivialPursuit said:

The melody does seem a bit similar, but when you consider how long humans have been creating music, there is bound to be songs that sound the same! LOL

cloveringold85 said:

Just add this to the list of Italy trying to screw Prince out of his money.

No surprise here.

It's because the melody of TMBGITW is ridiculously simple. It's the same thing repeated throughout the song. If you play it on a keyboard yourself you should understand why it might appear on various different pieces of music.

This happens a lot in Italy.

i think it was stolen from "U" by Brian McKnight

FunkyStrange said:

Just add this to the list of Italy trying to screw Prince out of his money.

No surprise here.

.

Yea, it's pretty bad.

This is ridiculous.I bet that Prince never even heard that crappy "Takin Me To Paradise" song!

SoulAlive said:

This is ridiculous.I bet that Prince never even heard that crappy "Takin Me To Paradise" song!

.

I know, like, that's not even the type of music that Prince would even listen to! LMAO!!