Music company loses rights to Bob Marley songs

A music company on Wednesday lost a court battle in Britain to retain the lucrative rights over 13 songs by Jamaican reggae legend Bob Marley, including his hit "No Woman, No Cry". Cayman Music had launched the challenge against Blue Mountain Music - a company responsible for administering royalties for Marley's works - for 13 songs written between 1973 and 1976.
It said that under an agreement struck in 1992 - 11 years after Marley's death - it should have been accorded copyright to the songs. But in actual fact, Cayman received nothing because Marley had "fraudulently" attributed the songs to others to avoid the terms of a deal he signed with Cayman in 1973, the company's lawyers said. Blue Mountain's lawyers accepted Marley "falsely claimed" the songs had been written by others in an bid to "escape the automatic assignment of their copyright to Cayman".