Kooky lawsuit claims Prince's music all belongs to some guy in California
LOS ANGELES -- Let's go crazy! Let's get nuts! Let's file a lawsuit claiming all of Prince's music belongs to us!
We are going to let the elevator bring this stack of papers straight down to the incinerator -- but first, for your amusement, here's a little about Carver County District Court case No. 10-PR-16-46, i.e. Rodney Herachio Dixon vs. The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson.
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Filed Wednesday in the same Minnesota court where the estate is being handled, Dixon's "declaration, petition and demand for notice" claims that he and Prince had an "implied agreement" sometime in the mid-'90s whereby the artist owed the Murietta, California resident $1 billion.
Since Dixon -- who is representing himself in this matter, of course -- values the entirety of Prince's intellectual property at something less than that, he argues that he is now its rightful owner, including all of the music, writings, performances, use of likeness, etc. etc.
Ummm ...
Dixon, who went by the names Aeric Alexander Mercury and Rameses America Mercury when he allegedly pursued these 1990s lawsuits, did not explain in his filing exactly why Prince would agree that he owed this random person a cool billion, nor did he demonstrate how he would go about proving this.
However, Dixon believes that because he once allegedly served Prince with legal papers that went into default because they were never acknowledged, he's now entitled to the singer's untold riches.
Mashable did not bother trying to reach Tyka Nelson, Prince's sister, who also filed a petition in Carver County to eventually become the estate's executor. Because honestly, why would she even dignify this hot nonsense with a comment?
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Topics Music
Josh Dickey is Mashable's Entertainment Editor, leading Mashable's TV, music, gaming and sports reporters as well as writing movie features and reviews.Josh has been the Film Editor at Variety, Entertainment Editor at The Associated Press and Managing Editor at TheWrap.com.A finalist for the Los Angeles Press Club's Best Entertainment Feature in 2015 for "Everyone is Altered: The Secret Hollywood Procedure that Fooled Us for Years," Josh received his BA in Journalism from The University of Minnesota.In between screenings, he can be found skating longboards, shredding guitar and wandering the streets of his beloved downtown Los Angeles.
