A federal judge has temporarily barred a producer from selling songs recorded by Taylor Hicks when he was still just a gray-haired bar crooner from Alabama.
- August 25, 2006
AceShowbiz -
Being famous has its ups and downs. Taylor Hicks is facing the bad one right now. The American Idol winner has, earlier this week, filed a lawsuit against William Smith and his production companies, William Smith Productions and Baldwin Entertainment, for more than $75,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.
What prompted the pop singer to take the legal step actually is an email his lawyer Michael J. Douglas received from Smith. In the July 24th email, the Nashville-based producer stating that he planned to release a song on iTunes that Hicks had laid down in 1997 called "The Fall". In fact, Hicks claimed that Smith doesn't have rights to the music.
On that matter, Smith insisted he has signed contracts with Hicks to release songs, "The Fall," "Son of a Carpenter," and "In Your Time", all of which they recorded together in June 2001. Further the man said he released the songs mainly to help fend off critics' bad reviews of Hicks' single, "Do I Make You Proud," released after he won "Idol" in May, while adding he's not sure how many copies of the songs were sold, but Hicks will get any royalties he is due.
As a matter of fact, Hicks claimed Smith and his companies wrongly tried to make money selling those three songs. Fortunately for Hicks that U.S. District Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins has issued a ruling Tuesday August 22nd that temporarily barred Smith from selling those related songs. The judge, moreover, has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 30 on whether to make her order permanent.
