Johnny Rotten loses row over Sex Pistols music
Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has lost a dispute with his former band members to stop their music from being used in an upcoming TV series at the English High Court.
Drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones sued Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, after he attempted to veto the use of the band’s songs in a new series about the Sex Pistols directed by “ Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle.
Cook and Jones claimed that a band members agreement (BMA) they had signed following the Sex Pistol’s split in 1978 meant a consent to license their music could be granted by a “majority vote”.
But Lydon’s lawyer claimed that the upcoming Disney-produced show would portray Lydon in a “hostile and unflattering light”, according to the BBC. Cook and Jones held that Lydon breached the BMA by refusing his consent, while Lydon had likened the deal to “slave labour” at the High Court proceedings.
High Court judge Sir Anthony Mann ruled that the band member agreement allowed for majority voting rules, pointing out that the fifth clause of the agreement states that: “if the majority of members want an exploitation of the Sex Pistols recordings, videos, name and likeness, artwork or merchandise to proceed, all parties have already agreed that such exploitation shall proceed”.
“I can't myself see that this clause leaves any room for further debate,” Mann said in a judgment handed down on Monday 23 August.
Judge Mann upheld the validity of the BMA agreement and found that even though it had not been used in the band’s past copyright disputes, this did “not amount to any sort of affirmation that the BMA was no longer going to be relied on” or “amount to an abandonment” of the agreement.
Lydon had argued that the agreement does not bind him when it comes to making decisions related to the band’s copyrighted music. The singer sought to use five letters between the band members as evidence for his argument that decisions over copyright had been previously decided on a “consensual basis”.
Judge Mann said: “It is true that the case of the claimants is that things were done (as far as they were concerned) on a consensual basis rather than a confrontational majority-imposing basis”.
But he concluded that Lydon was attempting to put a “different gloss on the narrative” and affirmed the continuing validity of the BMA.
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