LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — The family of deceased Brazilian bossa nova guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim has filed a breach of contract and royalties lawsuit against Universal Studios and Universal Music Publishing Group, alleging that the rights to many of his songs have been wrongly assigned to those who translated them into English.
Lawyers for Jobim’s widow and his three children called the act a “remarkable display of hubris and overreaching,” according to a report by Reuters.
Jobim wrote or co-wrote such classics as “The Girl from Ipanema,” “How Insensitive,” and “Meditation,” as well as dozens of other songs. He is regarded as one of the leading exponents of the lyrical bossa nova style.
The lawsuit alleges that worldwide copyrights to many of Jobim’s compositions were fraudulently assigned after his death to the man who translated the original Portuguese lyrics into English. According to the suit, Universal Studios and its publishing groups had never owned the copyright to the songs and no right to allocate the rights to anyone else.
The family is looking to win the copyrights back, along with unspecified damages. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
