Sony blocked a documentary filmmaker from using footage of the Beatles' first U.S. concert by falsely claiming ownership of the 35-minute tape at the 11th hour, the filmmaker claims in a $100 million lawsuit.
According to Courthouse News Service, Ace Arts sued Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Apple Corps Ltd. in Federal Court.
Ace says it planned to distribute its film, "The Beatles: The Lost Concert," about the band's impact in America "from the vantage point of the group's first United States concert" in Washington , D.C.
Ace claims: "The company that funded, taped, and exhibited the D.C. Concert allowed to film of the concert (the 'Tape') to be transferred without copyright protection. No copyright was ever filed on the performances recorded on the tape or the tape itself."
Parts of the 35-minute tape are included in the 86-minute documentary.
But Sony/ATV Music Publishing, "to curry favor with defendant Apple (Corps Limited), asserted spurious copyright infringement threats with respect to a public domain tape of the D.C. concert included in the documentary," the filmmaker claims.
Ace, a New York City-based filmmaker, says it contracted with more than 500 theaters across the country, sold tickets and promoted the documentary, which was to debut at the Ziegfeld Theater on May 6, 2011. It spent more than $1 million producing the documentary, and hoped for a box office draw of more than $50 million.
But "at the eleventh hour, before the early May premier, Sony/ATV, at the insistence of, and in conspiracy with, Apple Corps, wrongly interfered with the distribution contract by making false statements directly to Screenvision (and likely others) concerning Ace's legal right to exhibit the documentary," the lawsuit states.
Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Sony/ATV claims copyrights to eight songs and four cover versions of songs written by other musicians.
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