It's been a living hell for those involved in a lawsuit regarding Nina Simone's estate. With 25 years in the can in dealing with Simone's posthumous legal battle, Sony Music has filed papers in a San Francisco court to rescind a recent settlement agreement.
As of late, Andrew Stroud, Simone's former husband and manager, has been a key player in the litigation. Upon their divorce in 1972, Stroud was awarded some ownership of the singer's recordings.
Also, Steven Ames Brown, an attorney who represented Simone in the late '80s and '90s, worked out a deal that stated he would be assigned 40 percent of her rights to work that he "recovered."
Another key point is that Sony lawyers have gone out of their way to maintain complete privacy including telling a judge that if its competitors' and future artists learned about the settlement it would "represent a significant danger."
However, last week Sony came forward and submitted crossclaims in an action brought by Stroud's law firm, which is in possessions of Simone's recordings and was at a loss as to what to do with them.
According to Billboard, Sony described why it would be rescinding the previous agreement: "The record company says it made the $390,000 payment to Brown, but that afterwards, the other parties didn't lived up to their side of the bargain. Sony says that after the October settlement conference, Brown made 'negotiations of the long-form agreement nearly impossible.'"
They continue, "In response, Brown took the position for the first time that he and the Estate had conveyed to Sony Music only the reproduction rights in the Simone masters, and no other rights. In particular, according to Brown, he and the Estate did not convey the rights to the physical embodiment of the recordings to Sony Music."
Nina is also the subject of a Netflix original documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? So that should add some revenue into the pockets of, well, whoever wins the debate.
For now, here's a little bit of the musician below.
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