Love v. Wilson
| Love v. Wilson | |
|---|---|
| U.S. District Court | |
| Date decided | December 12, 1994 |
| Judge sitting | William J. Rea |
| Prosecutor(s) | Mike Love |
| Defendant(s) | Brian Wilson |
Love v. Wilson is a lawsuit filed in 1992. The suit alleged that the Beach Boys' co-founder Mike Love was wrongfully neglected as co-writer for 79 songs credited to his cousin and band mate Brian Wilson. In 1994, a jury ruled that Love and Wilson were partners, that Wilson or his agents concealed material facts with the intention of defrauding Love, and that they engaged in promissory fraud with respect to publishing credits and royalties, but that Love was owed only 35 of the songs disputed. He later called it "almost certainly the largest case of fraud in music history".
In 1969, Murry sold the Beach Boys' publishing company, Sea of Tunes, for the undervalued amount of $700,000 (equivalent to $4.57 million in 2016). He died in 1973. In 1991, the catalog was estimated to be worth $20 million ($35.2 million in 2016). Three years later, another estimate found it to be worth $40 million ($64.6 million in 2016).
In the early 1990s, Brian claimed fraud and sued for the return of his song copyrights. He suggested that his signature was forged by his father on several related business documents, making the sale illegal. While he failed to recover them in court, Brian was awarded $25 million in damages, including unpaid and underpaid royalties.
According to Love, "I didn't know how badly I had been abused until I was deposed in Brian's pursuit of his claims against Irving Almo and Mitchell Silverburg and Nutt, which was the attorney representing the Beach Boys and Irving Almo. An inherent conflict of interest there." He hoped that "we don't have to go to trial because it's going to destroy Brian. He's going to be destroyed in depositions, first of all, let alone getting him in court." They were unable to come up with a settlement.
Love alleged that he was owed credit to 79 Beach Boys songs.
After an eight-week-long trial and eight days of deliberation, on December 12, 1994, Love won the case. He was subsequently awarded a co-write to 35 songs that were published from 1962 to 1966:
(List per Andrew Doe.)
Sources
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Wikipedia