Prince Estate Wins $4 Million Judgement Against Engineer

Put this one down to “Better call a music attorney first.” The Prince estate sued engineer George Ian Boxill and his business partners for nearly $4 million for attempting to release a six-song EP of previously unreleased songs that Boxill worked on with the late artist. Days after it was announced that the EP would be released to various streaming services in 2017, the Prince estate filed an injunction preventing that from happening and initiated a lawsuit, which was won in arbitration and recently upheld by a Minnesota court.

Boxill worked with Prince from 2004 to 2008, but the tracks of the unreleased material known as the Deliverance EP were recorded between 2006 and 2008. Boxill completed the 6 tracks on his own between 2016 and 2017, and was listed as the co-writer and co-producer. The songs were to be released on the Rogue Music Alliance label, which was included the judgement.

Boxill had signed a confidentiality agreement that stated all tracks they worked on together would remain Prince’s sole and exclusive property, but claimed that since Prince had never countersigned it, the agreement was invalid. The case went to arbitration in August 2018 where the arbitrator disagreed and sided with the Prince estate. Boxill then went to court to have the judgement vacated but lost his appeal as the court agreed with the arbitrator, and awarded the estate a total of $3,960,000 – $3 million for the contract violation and $960,000 for costs to the Prince estate.

Boxill’s legal worries aren’t over yet however. He’s still being sued by the estate for copyright and trademark infringement, which just goes to show that you better be supremely sure that you known what you’re doing before you go up against a powerful music estate. Engineers are an integral part of the creation process but it’s easy to think you’re a larger part of it that you are, or at the very least, talk to the proper people on the team to get credit when it’s due. Best to do it while you can, because after the fact is never easy.

[Photo: Scott Penner]

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