Beatles sue over Star Club recordings again

Writer: Nikki King, photo by Harry Benson
News, Published online on 24 Mar 2008

Remaining members of the Beatles are suing Fuego Entertainment over the Star Club recordings that were acquired through the company’s British promoter Jeffrey Collins, as previously reported.

Several years ago, Collins was put under three years of probation for violation of New Jersey’s anti-piracy laws with other recordings, according to Billboard.com. The agency that manages the Beatles’ legacy, Apple, considers the release to be nothing more than a crude bootleg. The company’s representatives fear that these recordings would water down memories of the band.

“Whatever it is they claim to have, it’s a bootleg tape and there was no permission from The Beatles to record it, and Fuego doesn't have permission from The Beatles to exploit it,” said New York attorney Paul LiCalsi to the Miami Herald.

This is not the first time that a dispute has been rooted in these recordings. In 1991, Sony Music Entertainment tried to distribute The Beatles Live at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962—Vol. I and Vol. II before a cease and desist order caused execs to back away from the project.

Fuego Entertainment was issued a similar order after the company announced on Jan. 10 that it would be releasing the songs, and made a few available for streaming when fans registered with the Fuego Plus website. The company charged forward with promotion, with a press release that carried an air that these recordings were a new discovery. Jeffrey Collins appeared on The Today Show in early February and continued to pursue publicity for the album, Jammin’ With the Beatles and Friends, Star Club, Hamburg, 1962, before a court order forced Fuego to stop promotion and remove the clips.

“Don’t claim that these were just bootlegged,” Hugo Cancio, president of Fuego, said to the New York Times. “It’s not like today, that you just go in with a phone or BlackBerry and you record.”

“The world deserves to hear these tracks,” Cancio added. “The fact is that we have it, they don’t, and that is what’s bothering them.”

Although that may be the case, the premise for Apple’s battle against Fuego is that at the time of the concert the Star Club recorded, the Beatles had already signed with EMI, legally prohibiting any third-party recordings.

Apple Corps also stated that the company has violated copyright in more blatant ways as well, including using a lengthened “T,” much like in the Beatles logo.

In related Beatles news, longtime friend and marketing manager of the band, Neil Aspinall, passed away Sunday night in Manhattan. He was 66. He left no memoir, taking many of the Beatles’ secrets to the grave. Aspinall had just stepped down from leading Apple Corps last April after 40-plus years of managing the band. Recent projects that he spearheaded include Love for Cirque du Soleil, two volumes of the Capitol Albums and a remixed version of Let it Be.

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Beatles sue over Star Club recordings again

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