A new victory for Cher, and almost the last according to experts, in her legal war with the widow of her former duet partner Sonny Bono over the royalties that her songs continue to receive.
A federal judge has again ruled in favor … A final ruling gives the singer almost everything she asked for in her lawsuit, including potentially significant legal costs. Although Mary Bono plans to appeal As his lawyer told Rolling Stone, the American press sees the lawsuit as nearing its end.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt formally issued its previous ruling, which ruled that Mary was prohibited from using federal copyright law to make a claim 50% of Sonny’s songwriting rights were awarded to Cher in a 1978 divorce settlement.
Marie attempted to terminate these rights to songs such as “I Got You Babe” and “The Beat Goes On” as well as 50% of the recordings Cher made with Sonny. The judge stated that California contract law, which governs the divorce settlement, takes precedence over the power to terminate copyrights provided in federal copyright law.
And so the judge insists on that Cher reserves the right to receive royalties directly of his compositions and albums, although the rights were sold to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group in 2022.
The singer has received more than half a million dollars illegally withheld so far
Mary wanted to negotiate directly with Iconic and route payments through the estate, without Cher’s involvement. But that ruling included a clause, requested by Cher, stating that her right to collect remains intact, along with her consent rights with respect to “any and all third-party contracts relating to the musical compositions.”
Although Mary requested that neither party recover legal costs, the judge ruled so Share will receive the costs of being the winning party In all but one of the claims in the case.
Mary Bono must pay Cher an additional $187,000 after this new sentence
In this way, Mary was able to recover costs in the only lawsuit she won, relating to her power to choose the estate’s equity administrator. But Cher also got another victory there, as a clause was inserted at her request Which confirms your right to object to the proposed administrator, based on “the reasonableness of the administrative fee and the credentials and qualifications of the administrator.”
“Each side has prevailed in certain cases and we appreciate Judge Kronstadt’s efforts in this case, but we believe he got the law wrong with regard to copyright termination,” Mary’s attorney, Daniel Schacht, told Rolling Stone. “It is important that authors and their heirs have the rights that the legislation is intended to guarantee to them.”
Long dispute
Cher and Sonny Bono were an artistic and romantic duo until they broke up in 1986. Since then, Cher was collecting royalties from her song catalog with Bono under the divorce settlement of 1978, which stipulated that publishing income would be divided equally between the spouses.
When Sonny died in a skiing accident in 1998, he left Mary in charge of his estate. Her rights to publish her late husband’s music became subject to termination beginning in 2018, prompting Mary to notify publishers of her intention to claim back some of the transferred rights, which led to an interruption of the flow of funds to Cher in 2021.
Cher took the matter to court and the judge ruled that “the right to royalties is different from the grant of copyright,” agreed with her and ordered her to continue receiving her corresponding compensation. At the time, Mary Bono had to pay the singer $418,000 in royalties that were withheld during the dispute.
With this new legal victory, Scheer achieved Mary is forced to transfer another $187,000 to him Which was also deemed illegally kept, for which the singer has already secured more than half a million dollars ($605,000) with her claims.