Estate, Cascio and Porte Sued Over Three Songs on the "Michael" Album - Vera Senova Class Action

[Birchey]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

It's common for writers/producers/others to register their material years after the fact. MJ himself registered some songs years after he recorded them, and Brad Buxer only registered some MJ songs he did with him after his death.

I guess there was no point in registering vocals that, until MJ died, were never meant to be released anyway. It could be also that registration involved MJ's authorization, which he had not given/been asked for while he was alive.

You don't need someones permission to register a work in there name as far as I was told, well they didn't for MJSongBook anyway xD

 

[Kapital77]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Edit..............

 

[kreen]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Well there are 3 leads, just listening to them, you can hear they might be cut together. but the waveforms I have on these mixes are compilations of everything, so if they stiched together MJLd1 I cant tell. But what I was pointing to was that nothing from "original recording session" is repeated in the song that I can see, only the copy and pasted adlibs.

The point being they litterallty had a full song nailed. with at least 9 vocal takes. This could be as high as 90 but I cant tell.

So, the list of file titles that you found is what Stewart Bradley worked on, but not what they sent Sony? Sony only ever got the final version, and not the multiple takes/files that were diced and spliced into the final version?

But if you could access those file titles that easily, it's safe to assume that Sony/the Estate are also aware that this is how the songs were created?

 

[Birchey]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

So, the list of file titles that you found is what Stewart Bradley worked on, but not what they sent Sony? Sony only ever got the final version, and not the multiple takes/files that were diced and spliced into the final version?

But if you could access those file titles that easily, it's safe to assume that Sony/the Estate are also aware that this is how the songs were created?

Well those screenshots, were sent from 1 person to another, like I mentioned pretty much an Email client. Sony had potentially thousands of people with these SFTS (Secure file transfer system) accounts, for all we know the screens were sent from Brawley to Eddie, or from Brawley to Branca, each user had a username and login much like ur everyday email account, also being subject to data protection etc. Its not like Sony or The Estate would even know the screenshots were on there. The servers housed 100,000's of files. put it this way, Brad Roberts who all a sudden represented Angelikson as "business Manager" didn't even know of their existance, or that of the 12 Demos, he implied I had the multitracks and had mixed the demos myself. This is Eddies school friend and the guy running his company. Talk about keeping this stuff quiet.

 

[ivy]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

didn't even know of their existance, or that of the 12 Demos, he implied I had the multitracks and had mixed the demos myself.

so there are multi tracks (perhaps not on the servers but exists in real life)? and those demos aren't raw but already mixed- based on your explanation?

 

[Birchey]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

so there are multi tracks (perhaps not on the servers but exists in real life)? and those demos aren't raw but already mixed- based on your explanation?

Well he said to Sony I had those ProTools sessions, with the multis, even though I clearly stated here that I only had screenshots and nowhere did I ever claim to have them. As far as I am aware those screenshots and resulting demos we have are the first time all 12 tracks have been mixed down like this, which would probably be their first real demo form, being demonstration tracks for Sony.

But there are definately multitracks, tons and tons of stems and raw vocals. It just seems they didn't quite filter down to Sony, well at least not Teddy Riley. The Screenshots I have contain in essence those 12 Demos as they were at the end of Brawleys handy work with them. Vocals all on there own tracks, for KYHU etc, Cascio recording vocals and copy and pasted Adlibs alike. It was basically getting ready for the presentation to Sony.

 

[ivy]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

But there are definately multitracks, tons and tons of stems and raw vocals. It just seems they didn't quite filter down to Sony, well at least not Teddy Riley.

and fans don't have those? not you, others? and wouldn't this debunk "everything is deleted, only one take" claim?

 

[Birchey]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

and fans don't have those? not you, others? and wouldn't this debunk "everything is deleted, only one take" claim?

As far as I am aware the Multis were not on the server, Only Brawleys multi's for the Breaking News intro, which we can date as being done around Jan - Feb 2010. Yes it does debunk it, as clearly Brawley worked with alot of vocals, like I mentioned 9 at least, full takes for KYHU.

I wish people with more technical knowledge of ProTools could see the screens, I can only bring up red flags to my knowledge, I am sure there are more. Plus alot is from memory as I dont have them available right now

 

[WhoIsIt89]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Eddie claiming everything was deleted was his attempt to hide things. They can no longer lap it up to processing, when there are multiple lead vocal takes and they sound the same as they do on the final mixes we got, some worse than others, hence them being recorded 9 times. To get them to sound as much as Michael as possible. For the Michael words that the singer just couldn't duplicate, I'd assume Brawley with his possession of Invincible tapes then inserted specific words from Michael around the vocals of the Cascio singer that did sound a bit like Michael.

Example being exactly what was done with Monster, with "Why you keep" on stalkin' "me".

 

[Birchey]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Eddie claiming everything was deleted was his attempt to hide things. They can no longer lap it up to processing, when there are multiple lead vocal takes and they sound the same as they do on the final mixes we got, some worse than others, hence them being recorded 9 times. To get them to sound as much as Michael as possible. For the Michael words that the singer just couldn't duplicate, I'd assume Brawley with his possession of Invincible tapes then inserted specific words from Michael around the vocals of the Cascio singer that did sound a bit like Michael.

Example being exactly what was done with Monster, with "Why you keep" on stalkin' "me".

I didn't mean recorded 9 times for say the lead, but there are 9 full vocal tracks covering numerous leads and backing vocals at least on KYHU. Also with Brawley he worked on Editing I think for all the 2001 Special Editions so might of kept copies of some stuff from them too, The copy and pasted ablibs we know of look clean without some of the elements we have on our acapellas available on the internet so, I am guessing the vocals were ripped from masters. Anyway, its clear there was an abundance of vocals available, but after Brawley had done his wizardry, things were probably mixed down into only a couple of vocal tracks.

 

[Willy]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Birchey, speaking about your court case, how the Cascio song authenticity issue was treated by the court? Was it taken seriously or was it deemed irrelevant? Were there any Sony people testifying in regards to the authenticity of the Cascio tracks?

 

[JichaelMackson58]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Damn Birchy XD Haven't Sony heard of encryption? Honestly i don't know how they had a case when they didnt even bother to protect their files

 

[kreen]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

I didn't mean recorded 9 times for say the lead, but there are 9 full vocal tracks covering numerous leads and backing vocals at least on KYHU. .

We'd have to see if there were as many vocal tracks for the other songs.

 

[kreen]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

For the Michael words that the singer just couldn't duplicate, I'd assume Brawley with his possession of Invincible tapes then inserted specific words from Michael around the vocals of the Cascio singer that did sound a bit like Michael.

I don't know, again, this is so incredibly complicated.

If they had an impersonator at their disposal, and they could get him to redo take after take until he got it right, why would they then send Bradley three takes of the impersonator singing the same thing? Just get him to do one good take, which would be a lot more believable to the eventual buyers, and a lot easier to produce/explain.

And if the impersonator was so incompetent and lame that the only way they could fool anyone was to then get somebody to splice and dice these disparate vocal takes into a decent fac-simile, why would they even entertain the hoax in the first place? The whole concept of the hoax rests on them having a good Jackson soundalike. So they both had incredible faith in their soundalike and none at all?

And if they needed to splice in real MJ vocals for words the impersonator couldn't reproduce, why not just rewrite the songs so as to avoid those particular words or phrases in the first place?

Why did they do this the hard way when they could have so easily done this the easy way?

 

[OnirMJ]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

I don't know, again, this is so incredibly complicated.

If they had an impersonator at their disposal, and they could get him to redo take after take until he got it right, why would they then send Bradley three takes of the impersonator singing the same thing? Just get him to do one good take, which would be a lot more believable to the eventual buyers, and a lot easier to produce/explain.

And if the impersonator was so incompetent and lame that the only way they could fool anyone was to then get somebody to splice and dice these disparate vocal takes into a decent fac-simile, why would they even entertain the hoax in the first place? The whole concept of the hoax rests on them having a good Jackson soundalike. So they both had incredible faith in their soundalike and none at all?

And if they needed to splice in real MJ vocals for words the impersonator couldn't reproduce, why not just rewrite the songs so as to avoid those particular words or phrases in the first place?

Why did they do this the hard way when they could have so easily done this the easy way?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Brawley

not "Bradley"

It's not easy to duplicate Michael Jackson. Even Jason who is one of the best didn't even come close. If it was so easy Jason, taxi driver... and others would have their own careers and would be billionaires like Michael was. You can't duplicate or learn what Michael had. That was God's talent, Motown school and 45 years of hard work. Jason have none of the above. So he could have keep doing those takes over and over but it would still sound like WHITE amateur singer.

 

[WhoIsIt89]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

I don't know, again, this is so incredibly complicated.

If they had an impersonator at their disposal, and they could get him to redo take after take until he got it right, why would they then send Bradley three takes of the impersonator singing the same thing? Just get him to do one good take, which would be a lot more believable to the eventual buyers, and a lot easier to produce/explain.

And if the impersonator was so incompetent and lame that the only way they could fool anyone was to then get somebody to splice and dice these disparate vocal takes into a decent fac-simile, why would they even entertain the hoax in the first place? The whole concept of the hoax rests on them having a good Jackson soundalike. So they both had incredible faith in their soundalike and none at all?

And if they needed to splice in real MJ vocals for words the impersonator couldn't reproduce, why not just rewrite the songs so as to avoid those particular words or phrases in the first place?

Why did they do this the hard way when they could have so easily done this the easy way?

You can just listen to Monster and hear thats what they did. Fact is, theres no one out there who sounds just like Michael, nobody. So whoever they'd use, the same things would most likely have to be done. It sounds complicated but determination and the slight idea that you might be able to pass the songs off as Michael, is enough motive by itself. Malachi has had people fooled for a long time, people who believed he was Michael long before this may have even been considered. Perhaps they thought that was enough and that most people wouldn't notice or would think that it sounded enough like Michael and would be content with it just like that.

There is no perfect vocal impersonator. So again, who knows why they decided to do it, I don't know. I just know there's enough to tell me that the advertised vocals on these songs aren't who they're supposed to be.

 

[OnirMJ]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Even if they found "perfect vocal impersonator" they wouldn't have perfect singer. Michael was one of the best male singers in the world. Ever! That was 45 years of hard work and a lot of talent. Michael was a singing genius and Jason is "tone deaf".

 

[Tygger]

I must say that the posts with supporting evidence that these tracks are not authentic are very informative! I appreciate the posters who have done their best to make somewhat lofty concepts manageable for those reading the thread.

With that said; if this lawsuit is approved for trial, the chances that these lofty concepts will not be grasped by jurors is actually rather high. The plaintiff’s legal team will likely focus on analysis of these tracks to encourage doubt that someone(s) other than Michael sang those songs in full as well as the motive and opportunity of the offenders (minus Estate/Sony of course).

However; even an average defense lawyer can be highly successful in simply confusing a jury. A defense lawyer only has to repeatedly state the evidence is too lofty to be understood and one would be surprised how many jurors are likely to believe just that. Jurors, like any human, are likely to dismiss what is not clearly understood. The defense may also focus jurors to comparisons of any and every action by the offenders in this situation to a past that includes the capacity to act but, no action taken remotely resembling what happened here. The defense may also remind jurors that even if Michael did not sing 100% percent of the songs, he sang some percentage and that percentage may be deemed as acceptable enough to characterize a song(s) as a Michael Jackson song. Lastly, there most likely will be besmirching of the characters of plaintiff and anyone else (musical professionals, family members, etc.) that do not deem these songs as Michael Jackson songs. One can see interesting examples of each of these methods by posters in this thread.

Provided this goes to trial, a liable verdict is quite slim which continues to beg the question of the true purpose of this lawsuit. In the situation of Milli Vanilli, Arista willingly admitted their error and removed the songs from their catalog before any lawsuits by duped fans. That has not happened with these tracks almost four years after the fact. Despite Branca’s words to not use the Cascio tracks, Monster was not removed from the Immortal show or cd and the Cascio tracks were made available for sale via Michael’s packaged catalog on Itunes.

I believe it is very important that fans remember: whether this lawsuit goes to trial or not, is settled or not, has a favorable verdict for the plaintiff or not, there is NO scenario where Michael will receive the public apology he deserves from the gatekeepers of his musical legacy AND will have the offending songs removed from the catalog he dedicated his life to. No victory for Michael here. If Michael is not the victor, who is the true winner? Who gains the most from this?

 

[Kapital77]

I believe it is very important that fans remember: whether this lawsuit goes to trial or not, is settled or not, has a favorable verdict for the plaintiff or not, there is NO scenario where Michael will receive the public apology he deserves from the gatekeepers of his musical legacy AND will have the offending songs removed from the catalog he dedicated his life to. No victory for Michael here. If Michael is not the victor, who is the true winner? Who gains the most from this?

I believe it will be a great victory for every MJ fan If they take out those awful songs from his catalog.Look on YouTube, many MJ fans were fooled. Dancing "Monster", creating dance routines thinking MJ sung those songs. That´s disgusting.By the way, we don´t know what will happen if the fraud it´s proved....

 

[HIStoric]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Dancing "Monster", creating dance routines thinking MJ sung those songs. That's disgusting

Regardless of whether MJ sung 'Monster' or not, I'd still jam to it as I'm sure many people would. It's a solid beat.

 

[WhoIsIt89]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

@ Tygger, what you said in regards to Milli Vanilli is incorrect. First, let me tell you why this thing isn't as far fetched as some people claim. Milli Vanilli had been suspected of being frauds for a long time by numerous credible people, like Beth McCarthy Miller who at the time (late 80's) was an executive for MTV. She began to raise question after the pair showed up for an interview and had such bad English speaking skills and comprehension, that she felt it was no doubt that they didn't actually record their lyrics themselves. Charles Shaw, one of the actual singers began to out the group, because while he was in a way credited on the international versions of the album, thus being able to receive a cut from sales, the American version of that album, never credited the real singers in anything. Shaw begun to speak against this, and was paid 150, 000 dollars in hush money by the duo's manager. Another incident an earlier "lip-synching incident in which they're tracks were skipping, and basically caused the whole derailing of the show, led to the group being questioned through articles by on-air VJ, Down Town Julie Brown.

Despite the managers efforts, sort of similar to this situation, public criticism never ended in regards to this issue. This lead the manager, NOT Arista, to fess up to the scandal. Arista still cockingly never admitted to knowing about it and simply dropped the act from the label. And they did also remove the duo's masters from their catalog, which shows that it's possible Michael's legacy will be vindicated after all and will have these songs removed from his catalog.

They were then sued by a bunch of fans years later and only one of the lawsuits made it to court. These proceedings revealed that they did actually know the whole time Fab & Rob couldn't sing and that their dropping them from the label was their attempt at covering their tracks. A settlement was then reached in which refunds were paid not to everyone, but to those who attended their concerts as well as bought one or two of their US releases.

 

[HIStory]

Even if they found "perfect vocal impersonator" they wouldn't have perfect singer. Michael was one of the best male singers in the world. Ever! That was 45 years of hard work and a lot of talent. Michael was a singing genius and Jason is "tone deaf".

Yes. That's the thing. The singer on the Cascio tracks just cannot sing. That is the problem and that is the give away. He might have a somewhat similar tone to Michael's but he's just not a good singer, not a good vocalist. Michael is a great singer, a great vocalist and he's always been before or after the Cascio tracks. I cannot imagine the virus that just made him forget how to sing for these couple of weeks and for these 12 songs and that made him from one of the best vocalists of the world to sing as horribly as Jason Malachi sings.

I believe it will be a great victory for every MJ fan If they take out those awful songs from his catalog.Look on YouTube, many MJ fans were fooled. Dancing "Monster", creating dance routines thinking MJ sung those songs. That´s disgusting.By the way, we don´t know what will happen if the fraud it´s proved....

Yesterday I saw a KYHU video on YT with an MJ fan commenting that it was MJ's best ever. I wanted to throw something at the screen. Even if you think it's Michael how can you say it's his best? So KYHU is a better vocal performance than Time Waits For No One, She's Out of My Life, Earth Song, Keep The Faith, Man In the Mirror, Stranger in Moscow, Whatever Happens, Will You Be There etc. etc.? Malachi must be so proud. SMDH.

 

[ivy]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Arista willingly admitted their error

These proceedings revealed that they did actually know the whole time Fab & Rob couldn't sing

actually not true. Arista never admitted wrongdoing or it was never revealed for sure. Arista maintained they had no idea and they just distributed the album in USA, they had no idea if they were singing or not. Also as you know it was settled, so there hasn't been much hearing / testimony to "prove" anything about Arista. Arista pretty much offered a refund voluntarily when the Chicago lawsuit survived the demurrer phase. In their words:

"Officials at Arista and BMG deny they had any knowledge of the lip-sync fraud before its revelation in November, 1990, and say that the settlement offer is a gesture by the companies to rectify the situation."

and as the producer and the singers confessed to not singing, they removed the songs. With that admittance there was no question about those songs. As I said before in this instance there's no definitive proof like that. Even if there is an expert report that says most likely not MJ and if Estate/Sony/Cascio has or can produce a report that says most likely MJ, this will be something in limbo.

 

[WhoIsIt89]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

The reason why I don't believe Arista was completely in the blue, because like I said, on the International release for both of their albums, the actual singers were credited in some capacity, it wasn't until the US release when they ultimately stopped crediting the actual vocalists of the songs. Thus causing them to speak out. Somebody had to make that decision, Fab & Rob literally didn't possess the industry knowledge to make that sort of decision, their manager did, but I don't think he could make that call by himself.

 

[Tygger]

I believe it will be a great victory for every MJ fan If they take out those awful songs from his catalog.

Kapital77, it is not mandatory that the songs be removed from Michael’s catalog. This is why I found the remedies (and claims) of this lawsuit to be weak. The remedies for this lawsuit are restitution from all defendants and punitive damages from those accused of fraud for a select group of purchasers (California, U.S. from June 2011-June 2014) and future prevention of placing these tracks in the position to be sold. This means if the lawsuit goes to trial and the defendants are found liable, the Cascio tracks will be removed from any future sales of the Michael cd and the Itunes collection. I do not know how the Immortal show or the Immortal cd would be handled. There is NO mention of these tracks being removed from Michael’s catalog which is the only true victory for Michael in my view.

Whoisti89, Ivy, it depends on how you define Arista being willing to admit the error. The songs were removed from their catalog before any lawsuit and as Ivy posted, they released a statement regarding their settlement. What more would you have Arista do to admit the error? Do you believe Estate/Sony is inclined to do any actions you believe define admittance of such an error that you believe Arista did not do? Regardless of this lawsuit, there is no mandatory effort to remove those songs from Michael’s catalog and as I said above, that is the only true victory for Michael in my view.

 

[czechstar]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Regardless of whether MJ sung 'Monster' or not, I'd still jam to it as I'm sure many people would. It's a solid beat.

That's a shame. I think it sucks. And as a Michael Jackson fan, I am offended it exists.

 

[WhoIsIt89]

Kapital77, it is not mandatory that the songs be removed from Michael’s catalog. This is why I found the remedies (and claims) of this lawsuit to be weak. The remedies for this lawsuit are restitution from all defendants and punitive damages from those accused of fraud for a select group of purchasers (California, U.S. from June 2011-June 2014) and future prevention of placing these tracks in the position to be sold. This means if the lawsuit goes to trial and the defendants are found liable, the Cascio tracks will be removed from any future sales of the Michael cd and the Itunes collection. I do not know how the Immortal show or the Immortal cd would be handled. There is NO mention of these tracks being removed from Michael’s catalog which is the only true victory for Michael in my view.

Whoisti89, Ivy, it depends on how you define Arista being willing to admit the error. The songs were removed from their catalog before any lawsuit and as Ivy posted, they released a statement regarding their settlement. What more would you have Arista do to admit the error? Do you believe Estate/Sony is inclined to do any actions you believe define admittance of such an error that you believe Arista did not do? Regardless of this lawsuit, there is no mandatory effort to remove those songs from Michael’s catalog and as I said above, that is the only true victory for Michael in my view.

Arista didn't admit it though, as far as their mistakes made. If you're gonna quote Ivy, quote the whole message, where the "Arista admitted their mistake" claim, was said to be false. I didn't remember all the facts of the case, so I admit I was confused on them knowing being proven in court, but everything else was correct. Either way, they were held liable, because they were and as such were made to refund those profits from the albums sold in a certain area and for concert revenue.


And yeah, Monster sucks.

 

[ivy]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

The reason why I don't believe Arista was completely in the blue

You are free to believe what you want. Your previous statement said "proceeding revealed" which wasn't the case and Arista maintained they didn't know. Perhaps they knew, perhaps they didn't. I just don't think it was proven either way.

What more would you have Arista do to admit the error?

making a mistake unwillingly? then yes but as you can see from their statements they never admitted to a knowingly made mistake and they labelled their response to the fake vocal situation as "gesture".

This is not about what you posted but some people here expect Estate to apologize and so on. Given even Arista hasn't done such thing even when parties involved confessed, I wouldn't expect apologies or admittance of wrongdoing from Sony/ Estate. If they do anything they would too call it a "gesture". So I do agree with you that Estate/Sony wouldn't do something even Arista didn't do in a much certain fake vocals situation.

 

[HIStoric]

Re: Estate, Cascio & Porte sued - Forensic Analysis says MJ is NOT singing the 3 songs on "MICHAEL"

Not gonna lie, this controversy has me pretty conflicted. I mean, I care a shit load about Michael's legacy and it can annoy me when people downplay what he achieved throughout his life as well as his artistic works after Thriller/Bad... but despite all that, I just can't seem to care that much for this whole controversy? I've been pretty much on the fence since the beginning but I am edging towards the idea it isn't Michael.

I think it's probably because this started years and years ago and I'm 'over it' by now? And I actually think it's good 'Michael' went under the radar and was largely ignored by everyone. Aside from this controversy, it's just simply not that good of an album. I haven't had the album in my iTunes for years and I played about 4/10 songs on there regularly - don't miss it.

I think it's also because, aside from TII as I see the film/song as the final 'curtain call' for him, I don't usually consider posthumous releases as part of an artist's legacy either? Therefore I don't really think it's had much of a dent (if at all) on his legacy. He has one of the biggest legacies of any artist in HIStory, 3 minuscule songs on an under-the-radar posthumous album aren't going to put a dent in something so huge, imho anyway.

In saying that, I do understand why many fans are up-in-arms about this controversy and I too would be pretty happy if they just silently took down 'Michael' from his discography and stuff. Like being honest, I might bop my head to a song or two on there but overall it's just not a good album worthy of Michael's name - genuine vocals or not. Not too sure about a public apology though, the public have largely forgotten about this and putting it back into the spotlight (which a public apology would) has the potential to do further damage to Michael's future releases. I fear this lawsuit might do the same if it makes the mainstream headlines.

Just my two (honest) cents I suppose.

 

[Tygger]

Whoisit89, Ivy, I am not against your views and I do not believe your views are incorrect. I believe it depends on how you define Arista being willing to admit the error as apologies can be written and/or expressed through action. I personally appreciated that Arista removed those songs from their catalog before lawsuits were filed. Whether one is looking for the actually word sorry or not in their settlement statement, they did indeed reimburse those who sought restitution through the settlement. Apology accepted in my view.

I am a poster who would like to see the Estate/Sony apologize for what I believe to be their participation in a fraud. I am like others who have stated they believe the Estate/Sony did not know the songs were not authentic initially. Despite doubts being raised; they continued to push those songs on a grieving public as Michael Jackson songs and that is unforgiveable to me. I have my own theories as to why the Cascio tracks were so attractive to the Estate in particular but, I will not list those theories here.

I believe a public apology to Michael is necessary because they are the gatekeepers of Michael’s musical legacy since Michael passed. Michael solidified his musical legacy and Estate/Sony can very well tarnish it with such actions. That was not the case with Arista so yes, I expect much more from Estate/Sony than Arista. Of course, I understand a public apology most likely will not occur. I would be satisfied if the tracks would at the very least be removed from Michael’s catalog. However; there is no mandatory effort for such a removal so, I see no victory for Michael.