Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Curse Of The Greensleeves Vampires

redcrescent · May 28, 2005

From the Jamaica Daily Gleaner:

Greensleeves Records wins copyright case
published: Thursday | May 19, 2005

Germaine Smith, Staff Reporter

REGGAE GIANTS Greensleeves Records recently won a copyright infringement case brought against them by one of Jamaica's leading mixing engineers.

Hopeton Browne, known in the business as the 'Scientist', lost his bid after an approximate two-year fight in U.S. courts. Browne had challenged Greensleeves for the recording and composition copyrights of five tracks which he worked on for the video game, 'Grand Theft Auto 3.'

REGGAE CLASSICS

A release from Greensleeves stated that the tracks come from the album Scientist Rids The World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires, which was released in 1981, and which is now available as part of the Greensleeves Reggae Classics series.

The tracks were produced by the renowned Henry 'Junjo' Laws, and had been reportedly licensed by him to Greensleeves. All five tracks, Dance Of The Vampires, The Mummy's Shroud, The Corpse Rises, Your Teeth In My Neck, and Plague Of Zombies, were mixed at King Tubby's Studios back then.

Both Lawes and King Tubby are deceased, so that meant that Browne's claims could not be validated.

According to Greensleeves Records, the court found that Browne was not the owner of either the recording or composition copyrights. Greensleeves' Managing Director, Chris Sedgwick, claimed that the company went to trial because Browne's claims were unreasonable.

DISMISS THE COMPLAINTS

"Basically, Scientist was claiming to own copyrights in songs and recordings as a result of being the mixing engineer. Although we always felt these claims were ridiculous, we had to defend ourselves all the way to trial and are delighted to have got the right result," he said in a release.

The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, located in Manhattan, and was presided over by U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbau.

Checks with the records office of that court confirmed the judgement made against Browne. A clerk there stated that the judge ordered that the plaintiff (Browne) dismiss the complaints against Greensleeves.

Others who reportedly testified at the trial include King Jammy's, who worked with King Tubby's at the time, and Chris Cracknell, Greensleeves' artist and repertoire director.

===

I'll let this stand as it is for the now as I'm far too angry to make any constructive comments about the actions of a label which has brought so much good music to my life, perhaps someone else will venture their thoughts.

(Thanks to Wayne Marshall of Wayne&Wax for bringing this up on his blog.)

dominic · May 28, 2005

actually ripley is interested in this kind of issue -- and has also posted on the scientist case

check out her blog -- http://djripley.blogspot.com/

dominic · May 28, 2005

in fact this to me seems a really good topic for a lengthy thread

to quote ripley --

ripley on her blog said:
Anyway, granting that you could maybe use the word "consumer" (I favor "fan," more because fans and fandom are totally ignored in discussions of incentive and contribution, but really there needs to be a better term).. ANYWAY, granting "consumer" (and "he"), the cat i'm responding to says that "Ownership has never been a part of a consumer’s relationship with the content he buys." This doesn't go far enough. The meaning of the word Ownership changes in various contexts, and can't be assumed.

“Ownership” is a confusing term - it seems to describe a relationship between you and an object, but it really is describing a relationship between you and other people - but it doesn’t reveal much about what is involved in that relationship. I want to know about the right to exclude, the right to include, the right to destroy, the right to manipulate, the right to copy, the right to distribute...

On the subject of artists, I seriously doubt most arguments about artists’ economic incentives for creating. When p2p and other art-sharing systems come up, someone always speaks up for how no matter what an artist wanted that was non-economic, they didn't make art as an altruistic gift to the world. Some do this. But there are more choices between charging by the piece for art (and breaking it into pieces to charge by) and pure altruism. there's fame, which can be converted into more than money, there's power, and reinforcing identity ("our music" "voices not heard enough"), and all kinds of other goals and motivations.

“Ownership” inadequately describes artists’ relationship to music, to the music they write, and the music they engage with. Some of what “ownership” means is that sense of identity, of connection.

And even more with consumers - here a sense of ownership could be partly about the relationship between the artist, other artists perceived as related, and other people who like that artists. ("our people" "*genre* fans")

I worry about the shorthand of economic incentive as used in copyright discussions -economic incentive as the mechanism by which copyright rewards creators, and the mechanism by which people value things (i.e. free automatically more desirable than pay). This masks the way that information and information-sharing is constitutive of many things, of identity, of culture(s), of democracy, of political plurality, of knowledge…

Ownership, for artists, is discussed in copyright terms as creating a situation where artists profit from their work. But the moral arguments behind it tend to shade into moral rights of authors to control how their work is framed (which our law basically doesn’t recognize) --artists see someone making use of their work and profiting by it which seems unfair or inauthentic-- and then usually follows a kind of statement that “people have a right to make a living.”

So, ownership is seen as the way for artists to make a living. But I think this is a false link. I agree that everyone wants to not be broke - everyone wants to have some level of material comfort. But I don’t see that as automatically tied to the incentive for music making. That’s just survival in general.

Folk may really mean that people have a right to a decent quality of life, but it’s not necessarily helpful to assume the best way to get to a quality of life. Maybe there’s a better way to get there than a metering system that parcels out money based on atomized bits of information.

for example, if we had a more generous welfare/dole system and free health care and education, would artists be so concerned about making money off of copyright? Especially the artists that gets everyone’s moral dander up - the small, struggling, independent artists? I don’t think the answer is clear. People make arguments about incentives to create art, but I don’t think being starving or living hand-to-mouth is that good for creativity.

For many other informational ‘goods’ there are network effects that are not captured by the concept of “ownership” - like the scientific article or software interface that is more useful the more people have it.

I’m not necessarily advocating a socialist system or welfare state.. I’m trying to emphasize that the current “business models” and to a great extent our copyright system itself assumes things about people’s engagement with information that may not be accurate.

There may be other ways to ensure people make a living (if that’s what we’re concerned about) than by atomizing information and charging per piece. And if we are concerned about all the non-economic, social values of easy transmission and transformation of information, there may be other ways to capture more of them as well.

all kinds of issues here

so hopefully others will see this as fertile ground for discussion . . . .

originaldrum · May 28, 2005

reminds me of a buddy of mine who is essentially an engineer who always claims he writes the tunes...

john eden · May 28, 2005

Yeah I blogged this as well.

It's tricky because contractually the rights to the songs are owned by the estate of Junjo, and Scientist would have been given a flat rate fee for mixing (as I assume the musicians were!). Except of course Greensleeves have marketed it as a Scientist album and created a whole mystique around th guy and his prowess in the studio to sell product. Nobody else could have made those records sound that way - fans and the label know this.

So it's total double standards to say Scientist just a mixing engineer and the LP is really just some remix add on for a, say, Michael Palmer album, and then not mention the singers or musicians or producer on the cover at all...

ripley · May 28, 2005

thanks for the quote, dominic.

actually, Wayne Marshall has weighed in on this as well, saying loads of stuff, including everything, pretty much, I was planning to write as a follow-up when I finish touring. All read, please.. the entry for 5.24

He makes some points about junjo lawes that are pretty interesting.

Also, I think this issue is quite relevant to a lot of dance music. I k now a considerable number of names (commercially successful ones, perhaps especially) who go into the studio with a sound engineer and tell him(her?) what to do, but don't actually know how to use the stuff, or care to.

So who is "the creator"?

again, seems like a lot of the argument about creativity actually masks a concern with who deserves to get paid, and how much. How important would it be otherwise?

Woebot · May 30, 2005

regardless of the point eden makes (quite sensibly) this smacks of mainstream music law being completely and shamefully ignorant to any significant developments in music since the 1950s.

Grievous Angel · May 30, 2005

I'm not comfortable with any of this because I don't understand the legal issues sufficiently well.

As I understand it, Scientist wants composition credit for tracks from the LP Scientist Rids The World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires which were used in GTA. If he had composition credit for the original album there'd be no probloem, but obviously he hasn't, and legally I suspect this means he was fucked from the start. Obviously i's morally wrong that he didn't have the rights to his own album in the first place, but having lost that to Junjo, it's unlikely he can effectively change both the original contract with Junjo. Thojugh other artists have managed to retrospectively change contracts (see Passman's Everything you need to know about the music business, a great intro to music biz law) it's pretty hard. Even if he'd succeeded in this case, I doubt that in itself would change the law w.r.t. engineers (and even artists) getting credit that's not specified in the original contract.

I guess in this case he was arguing that in remixing the tracks for the GTA soundtrack -- which I assume is what he did -- he should get compositional credit thereto, but it looks like he couldn't get that argument to stick. I don't know.

It's just weird that the greatest music ever made has the worst record for paying the creators of that music.

john eden · May 31, 2005

WOEBOT said:
regardless of the point eden makes (quite sensibly) this smacks of mainstream music law being completely and shamefully ignorant to any significant developments in music since the 1950s.

Quite - but this isn't necessarily just inertia, it clearly serves certain parties interests to keep things back in the 50s.

Paul - I am not sure if the tracks on GTA are reworkings or just part of the soundtrack taken straight off the album with no reworking...

DigitalDjigit · May 31, 2005

The tracks on GTA soundtrack are taken straight from the album (well, there's a bit of DJ chatter over the top, but Scientist has nothing to do with this. It was added for the game since it is supposed to be a radio station). But the Scientist album itself is a remixing of songs produced by Junjo Lawes.

I don't think that it would be fair to just pay Scientist. Without the original tracks what would he have to work with? The success of a dub is just as dependent on the original track as the skill of the engineer.

redcrescent · May 31, 2005

2stepfan said:
It's just weird that the greatest music ever made has the worst record for paying the creators of that music.

My sentiments exactly.

John Eden so OTM. It's pure cynicism to market Scientist albums and then turn around and call his claims to authorship "ridiculous". That Sedgwick sounds like a right cvnt if you ask me. Bah!

DD said:
I don't think that it would be fair to just pay Scientist. Without the original tracks what would he have to work with? The success of a dub is just as dependent on the original track as the skill of the engineer.

I won't dispute the truth of the last sentence, but IMHO a dub is a very cheap way to re-sell a track you've already sold as a vocal cut, and many dubs and re-cuts have by far outsold the original track they derive from.
I think a token sum would've been in order. Greensleeves (easily the biggest selling roots/dancehall label)have recouped whatever investments they may have made many times over, and I suppose the Rockstar Games contract must've been substantial, too.
It's called paying your dues.

Now playing: Heavy Metal Dub (Clocktower)

ripley · Jun 7, 2005

2stepfan said:
I'm not comfortable with any of this because I don't understand the legal issues sufficiently well.

Nobody understands the legal issues relating to dub and copyright sufficiently well, because the law doesn't understand the creativity issues sufficiently well.

the roles of authors, performers, songwriters, engineers, studio owners, and pre-existing culture and songs etc etc in creating a work are not well understood by law.. law generally steps in after negotiations (and pre-existing relations) among those groups dictate who will deal with copyrights.

None of that has to do with a right to make money off copyright that is inherent in any particular activity.

It's dangerous to look to law to tell you what your rights are - especially because law has a poor track record on defining and defending the rights of the less powerful - those rights have to be fought for in the law or written into it. So I'm for looking at who is involved, and thinking about who 'deserves' to get paid and for what, and trying to make the law recognize or at least permit that in some way.

dominic · Jun 7, 2005

ripley said:
So I'm for looking at who is involved, and thinking about who 'deserves' to get paid and for what, and trying to make the law recognize or at least permit that in some way.

yes, but how do you determine in way that would be generally applicable who should have rights in the product's future use and accrued value, as opposed to mere compensation for services rendered at time of production

that is, does every producer make a contribution to the final product that is on par w/ the contributions that dub producers like the scientist have made?

aren't many producers simply by-the-numbers technicians?

(and why give producers rights in the recording, but not the sound engineers or other parties?)

isn't this the kind of question that can only be determined RETROSPECTIVELY -- to the extent that it can be objectively determined at all -- i.e., we now value work A b/c of its stunning production, but we value work B mainly for the inspired songcraft -- and so this would seem to lead to the quandry (injustice) of re-drawing people's rights after the fact

(or would you have different rules for hip hop and dub reggae b/c these are "producer-driven" fields -- except what about the phil spector and martin hannett geniuses of rock? or the jay-z charismatic performers in hip hop???)

the reason there is so much room for freedom of contract and negotiation is precisely b/c there is no generally applicable formula for determining which percentages and which rights different parties are entitled to -- which of course gives the advantage to the party that can afford the best lawyers at time of contract

(though there's the default rule whereby the artist gets 1/2 and the publisher gets 1/2 of the rights in the sound recording?)

dominic · Jun 7, 2005

ripley on her blog said:
granting that you could maybe use the word "consumer" (I favor "fan," more because fans and fandom are totally ignored in discussions of incentive and contribution, but really there needs to be a better term)

YES YES YES

btw this was a peripheral issue in the infamous poptimism debate

tim finney would presumably say, in reply, that fans are nothing other than consumers w/ false consciousness

ripley on her blog said:
“Ownership” is a confusing term - it seems to describe a relationship between you and an object, but it really is describing a relationship between you and other people - but it doesn’t reveal much about what is involved in that relationship.

YES YES YES

this is why fans and scenesters think they have a special claim over the music (b/c music has "claimed" them), as well as the right to exclude others or snicker at johnny come latelys or resent the non-committal types who crash their scene -- i.e., they experience it as a kind of trespass -- and yet if scene is below media radar or deemed unfashionable, they also resent the lack of recognition

ripley on her blog said:
I want to know about the right to exclude, the right to include, the right to destroy, the right to manipulate, the right to copy, the right to distribute

that's what ownerhip is = a bundle of rights and privileges, obligations and liabilities

ripley on her blog said:
I seriously doubt most arguments about artists’ economic incentives for creating . . . . There are more choices between charging by the piece for art (and breaking it into pieces to charge by) and pure altruism. there's fame, which can be converted into more than money, there's power, and reinforcing identity ("our music" "voices not heard enough"), and all kinds of other goals and motivations

I agree that artists have many motivations other than desire to make a living

but what about the motivations of those who provide artists w/ the means to record and distribute their music?

i.e., there's something of an ancient versus modern liberalism issue here

alternative 1 = rely on the generosity of wealthy individuals (and their desire for a certain reputation) = a patronage system = hardly the most reliable ground, and plus such sponsorship in large part reflects the tastes of the wealthy -- would hip hop ever have made it to the recording studio under such circumstances? or rock n roll, hot jazz, the blues?

alternative 2 = make the desire for private profit the basis of the system = this gives common people (errr, huge entertainment conglomerates?) an incentive to provide artists w/ resources for recording and distributing music -- which in turn leads to freely transferable rights in the recording, etc -- unless you were to give the recording artists and other parties involved in the recording rights of first refusal -- i.e, i'm referring to wayne marshall's remarks about greensleeves acquiring the rights of henry "junjo" lawes in the scientist case

or are there other alternatives?

tony wilson and factory records?

ripley on her blog said:
“Ownership” inadequately describes artists’ relationship to music, to the music they write, and the music they engage with. Some of what “ownership” means is that sense of identity, of connection . . . . And even more with consumers - here a sense of ownership could be partly about the relationship between the artist, other artists perceived as related, and other people who like that artists. ("our people" "*genre* fans")

YES YES YES

but why can't you isolate -- as the law does -- the aspects of ownership relating to financial stake and control over use from these other aspects?

ripley said:
So, ownership is seen as the way for artists to make a living. But I think this is a false link. I agree that everyone wants to not be broke - everyone wants to have some level of material comfort. But I don’t see that as automatically tied to the incentive for music making.

yes

get rid of the financial incentive, and you'll still have people who want to make and perform music for the reasons you stated above

but how many will then go to the trouble of recording AND distributing their music? -- or has the internet changed this dynamic, b/c mp3's are in fact very easy to distribute

again, recording and distributing hard copies of music (i.e., vinyl) costs serious money -- and so it's more a question of providing incentives for auxiliary parties than for the artists themselves

ripley said:
Maybe there’s a better way to get there than a metering system that parcels out money based on atomized bits of information.

the metering system that ASCAP uses is absurd -- especially when it comes to monitoring what gets played at bars and clubs (i.e., determining current value of performance rights) -- needless to say, the ASCAP system favors big record companies and commercial artists, not underground artists who get very little by the way of radio or mtve play and who get played only at bars/clubs/raves -- though ASCAP now has technology to monitor interent downloads, which should lead to more money in pockets of underground artists

ripley said:
For many other informational ‘goods’ there are network effects that are not captured by the concept of “ownership” - like the scientific article or software interface that is more useful the more people have it.

patent law provides incentives to share information w/ others -- i.e., promote progress -- while granting the innovator a monopoly over use and marketing of the specific advancement for x number of years

copyright governs not information (i.e., "hard" technical innovation as in the sciences and practical arts) but expression -- i.e., it's not the information or argument or thought that's protected, but the particular expression -- so if you pioneer a new way of playing guitar or a new method of recording that makes use of existing machinary, others can freely and immediately make use of that artistic innovation -- i.e., there's no limited monopoly that even comes into play -- so i'm not sure why you think copyright law is incompatible w/ the reality of network effects?

ripley said:
There may be other ways to ensure people make a living (if that’s what we’re concerned about) than by atomizing information and charging per piece. And if we are concerned about all the non-economic, social values of easy transmission and transformation of information, there may be other ways to capture more of them as well.

anybody have any thoughts on this one?

hint · Jun 7, 2005

dominic said:
yes, but how do you determine in way that would be generally applicable who should have rights in the product's future use and accrued value, as opposed to mere compensation for services rendered at time of production

the only way is to make sure that contracts are in place at the time of recording, really. so this means that everyone involved needs to know what they might reasonably be entitled to. as you point out - unless you have lawyers or extensive knowledge of the applicable laws, you can't guarantee that you'll get what you deserve.

that is, does every producer make a contribution to the final product that is on par w/ the contributions that dub producers like the scientist have made?

aren't many producers simply by-the-numbers technicians?

well, the term "producer" is vague. in theory it refers to the role someone plays in taking a song and its performers into the right environment and creating a unique recording. this can mean anything from telling a guitarist which pedal to use, to dictating a whole new arrangement of a song, to building the entire backing track yourself. it can even mean saying certain things or behaving in a certain way in order to extract a higher quality of performance out of an artist.

the idea is that a particular recording should be shaped by a producer's input and would, in theory, sound different if produced by someone else.

for example - a producer transformed heart of glass from a dreary, average, reggae-lite plod into one of the greatest pop singles of all time.

and why give producers rights in the recording, but not the sound engineers or other parties?

sound engineers work according to the instructions of the producer. they are the by-the-numbers technicians to whom you refer above.

isn't this the kind of question that can only be determined RETROSPECTIVELY -- to the extent that it can be objectively determined at all -- i.e., we now value work A b/c of its stunning production, but we value work B mainly for the inspired songcraft -- and so this would seem to lead to the quandry (injustice) of re-drawing people's rights after the fact

it's no different to any form of industry. in professional / career terms, a producer might have to make his mark before he can demand more rights over a recording at the contacting stage. once you know labels or bands are approaching you to give their album a particular sound or style, you can reasonably demand "points" (a percentage of profits from sales of that recording) either instead of, or in addition to, a session fee.

(or would you have different rules for hip hop and dub reggae b/c these are "producer-driven" fields -- except what about the phil spector and martin hannett geniuses of rock? or the jay-z charismatic performers in hip hop???)

well, this is where the lines get blurry, because people like the neptunes might be referred to as producers but in fact they're producers, performers and songwriters. so this kind of "I make the beat, you do the vocals" setup in modern hip hop and reggae already allows for the creative input of the producer because they are automatically granted rights by law over the composition.

the problem with remixing / dub is that you can't reasonably lay claim to songwriter or performer status unless you provided original musical or lyrical input, rather than simply re-arranging or re-recording an existing musical composition.

(though there's the default rule whereby the artist gets 1/2 and the publisher gets 1/2 of the rights in the sound recording?)

publishing is concerned with songwriting, not recording. so in order for a producer to receive publishing income from a dub version, the track must be registered as a whole new version of the song and the producer must be credited as a songwriter / performer on this new version. of course, this requires the co-operation of the other parties involved.

wayneandwax · Jun 10, 2005

a few more thoughts, and points, on this one (courtesy of david katz):
http://wayneandwax.blogspot.com/2005/06/more-science.html

redcrescent · Jun 11, 2005

More illumination courtesy of W&W. I think the Scientist-as-a-sonic-genius angle is given increased credibility, and that comment about Junjo being a bankroller and a mover and shaker (i.e. a producer in the JA sense of the word) with no musical talent is no less revealing.
I must finally get my hands on that Katz book.

Thank you Wayne, good to see you on Dissensus.

droid · Mar 30, 2006

Update from B+F board

The plot thickens.

Greensleeves come a cross as a bunch of ruthless bastards, and Jammy seems to be more than happy to perjure himself for the almighty dollar.

Sickening.

Check out the Mp3s.

Dub Engineer ‘The Scientist’ Fears For His Life As He And Record Label/Producer Jah Life Receive Death Threat From King Jammys Henchman

On Saturday, March 25th, 2006 West Indian Times was alerted by veteran artists and producers in the Reggae industry to the existence of 2 separate recordings of conversations which included death threats towards Dub Engineer Hopeton Overton ‘The Scientist’ Browne and Producer/Label owner Hyman ‘Jah life’ Wright as well as admission of perjury in a US court by King Jammys. One of the recordings is a conversation between King Jammys (a record label/producer based in Jamaica) and Dub Engineer Scientist who is based in America and the other recording is of a conversation between The Scientist and a man who stated that King Jammys was his boss.

After listening to the recordings West Indian Times spoke to Browne and Jah Life to find out what led to the death threats. We were given history that spanned over 30 years in the music industry; history, secrets, facts that only a few are privy to. For now, we will share with you our readers the information we were given as to what directly led up to the death threats against Scientist and Jah Life.

In 2003 The Scientist filed a law suit in the United States Federal Court against Greensleeves record label (based in England) and the company RockStar the makers of the game ‘Grand Theft Auto’ for copyright infringement. The Scientist had challenged Greensleeves for the recording and composition copyrights of five tracks which they used on the video game, Grand Theft Auto 3. The music was originally from one of The Scientist's albums that was released in the 80's entitiled 'Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Vampires.' The Scientist’s music was included in the violent video game without his knowledge or consent. Greensleeves had made a deal with RockStar for the company to use the music by The Scientist and when Greensleeves was asked by RockStar if they had the rights to the music they said they did. Greensleeves indemnified Rockstar meaning they would be responsible for any costs incurred if there was a claim by any person stating that they had rights to the music.

In the US court Greensleeves had to produce the documents that were signed with RockStar for Grand Theft Auto, they had to produce the shipping bill and all the information regarding pressing. Greensleeves also produced a document which was alleged to have been signed by a producer and marketing rep who represented both Jah Life (US) and The Scientist (Jamaica) overseas. This producer/marketing rep. was Henry ‘Junju’ Lawes. The document was signed in approximately 1978 and showed where Greensleeves paid Junju for music. They also produced a second document which was allegedly signed by Lawes around 1994 before he died. The second document signed by Lawes basically gave ownership and copyright of music by over 30 artists to Greensleeves. However, nowhere on the contract did it mention an amount that was paid for the copyright ownership. There was also a question in court as to the validity of the documents signed by Junju Lawes as he was illiterate and Greensleeves knew this, in fact both Jah Life and Scientist say that Greensleeves would not work with them, only through Jun Ju as they could get away with fooling him as he could not read or write. Scientist and Jah Life claim that this is why Junju was named as producer on over 30 + albums that he took to Greensleeves instead of them. Also, it was noted that both contracts had identical signatures, no deviation and even had the same smudge marks as though the second signature was cut and paste from the first contract.

King Jammys Testifies For Greensleeves

Since there were doubts as to the validity of the contract signed by Junju, Greensleeves had Producer / Record Label owner King Jammys travel from Jamaica to America to testify in court on behalf of Greensleeves and against The Scientist. In court King Jammys testified that The Scientist was a young boy of 14/15 years old and did not have the experience to engineer the music that he says he did. He also said that he, King Jammys was the boss and foreman at King Tubbys studio in Kingston where the work was produced and when The Scientist did any work it was on a ‘work for hire’ basis, you got paid for your work one time and you owned no copyright. The Scientist says this is not true and although he was very young, King Tubby trusted him implicitly to open up and lock up the studio as well as engineer the music. Unfortunately King Tubby is deceased and unable to verify this. However, Jah Life verified that what The Scientist said is true. Jah Life states that at no time was Jammys in the studio with them, it was only The Scientist, Jah Life and Junju’s brother ‘Melon.’

Another artist, veteran DJ Lady Ann also spoke to West Indian Times saying that she was there in the studios most of the time with The Scientist and that he was the best mixing engineer of those times. Lady Ann said that King Tubby’s studio was the worst place in Kingston, she said you had to pass gunmen who would ask if you are PNP or JLP in order for you to get past and you had to answer ‘Musician’. Lady Ann said that Jammys (who was Prince Jammys at the time) would not go to the studio because it was too dangerous and she knew that Jammys was envious of The Scientist because of the trust and faith that King Tubbys put into Scientist. Lady Ann says she too is fighting for her royalties so that her children are set before she leaves this earth.

Why Did King Jammys Lie?

According to The Scientist, King Jammys along with Lynval Thompson are the only people who records show are paid by Greensleeves. Lynval Thompson is also a record producer. It is in King Jammys best interest to see that Greensleeves stays viable so he can channel his music through England. The Scientist is now a big threat and hindrance to Greensleeves and King Jammys because although the US Federal Judge and Grand Jury believed King Jammys story that Scientist was too young to have so much power and skills at that young age, and he had been paid ‘work for hire’ the company RockStar settled with him out of court and paid him for his works. They obviously believed Scientist.

Greensleeves Responsible Party

Although they did not have to pay The Scientist and give him the copyright to his music, Greensleeves was responsible for the huge bill that had been mounting up over a three year period. The expensive lawyer fees for themselves and RockStar and all monies paid out was their responsibility.

Greensleeves recently sold their company.

The Scientist now has a lawsuit pending in France against Greensleeves, and his lawyer Andre R. Bertrand is engaging in actions to obtain the payment of the legal remunerations due and payable to the Jamaican artists and musicians, including Jah Life and The Scientist, who were not compensated for their work.

In France, the courts want to see an actual contract showing ownership they do not recognize the concept of work for hire. This will put Greensleeves in a serious situation because if they lose in court, they could face fines of up to 180,000 Euros per violation and a violation does not mean an album but a track. Not only that, but it would set a precedence for others to follow and be compensated for their work.

The Death Threats

Calls were made to The Scientist on Sunday, March 19th 2006 and he recorded them.

Listen to them . They can be heard at:

http://www.dubmusic.com/jammyslies

ripley · Mar 30, 2006

droid said:
The plot thickens.

Greensleeves come a cross as a bunch of ruthless bastards, and Jammy seems to be more than happy to perjure himself for the almighty dollar.

Sickening.

Check out the Mp3s.

Holy crap. this is incredible. well believable, actually, but I'm amazed it surfaced. thanks for this, d.

where is the original article? I want to cite it in a paper...

droid · Mar 30, 2006

No worries.

Original Article is here: http://www.westindiantimes.net/ent/etnws/92.html but the page is a bit wonky.

Ctrl/apple+a to see all the text.

Scientist Rids The World Of The Evil Curse Of The Greensleeves Vampires

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from start till done

male pale and stale

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male pale and stale

Honky Tonk Woman

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Beast of Burden

party record with a siren

boston jerk

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