MJ Songs, Art and Photos -- Tale of Thievery
Katherine Jackson's business partner illegally made millions of bucks from Michael Jackson's music, photos and drawings -- this according to a lawsuit filed by MJ's Estate and obtained by TMZ.
The MJ Estate has sued Howard Mann -- the guy behind MichaelJacksonSecretVault.com -- claiming Mann has duped fans into believing his website was kosher ... when it was in fact, "rife with illegal uses of Michael Jackson intellectual property."
According to the lawsuit, Mann displayed "arrogant disregard" for the Estate's copyrights on all things MJ ... and wrongfully published clips, artwork and trailers from "This Is It" -- content from the "Thriller: 25th Anniversary Edition" CD and much, much more.
The Estate also accuses Mann of posting an "unreleased" MJ song called "Opis None" ... which in reality, was a remix of the song "Destiny" which The Jacksons released in 1979. The Estate claims Mann had no right to publish the song ... and the confusion he caused damaged the MJ Estate.
The Estate also claims Mann published several sketches that MJ drew himself ... including one titled, "Bubbles Chair" ... as well as a number of copyrighted photographs in Katherine Jackson's coffee table book, "Never Can Say Goodbye."
The Estate believes Mann hauled in more than $1.5 million in sales from the book in its first two days -- money that rightfully belongs to the Jackson Estate.
The Estate wants to recoup all of the revenues Mann raked in from the sale and publication of the Estate's property ... plus punitive damages -- which surely could be in the tens of millions.
The MJ Estate has sued Howard Mann -- the guy behind MichaelJacksonSecretVault.com -- claiming Mann has duped fans into believing his website was kosher ... when it was in fact, "rife with illegal uses of Michael Jackson intellectual property."
According to the lawsuit, Mann displayed "arrogant disregard" for the Estate's copyrights on all things MJ ... and wrongfully published clips, artwork and trailers from "This Is It" -- content from the "Thriller: 25th Anniversary Edition" CD and much, much more.
The Estate also accuses Mann of posting an "unreleased" MJ song called "Opis None" ... which in reality, was a remix of the song "Destiny" which The Jacksons released in 1979. The Estate claims Mann had no right to publish the song ... and the confusion he caused damaged the MJ Estate.
The Estate also claims Mann published several sketches that MJ drew himself ... including one titled, "Bubbles Chair" ... as well as a number of copyrighted photographs in Katherine Jackson's coffee table book, "Never Can Say Goodbye."
The Estate believes Mann hauled in more than $1.5 million in sales from the book in its first two days -- money that rightfully belongs to the Jackson Estate.
The Estate wants to recoup all of the revenues Mann raked in from the sale and publication of the Estate's property ... plus punitive damages -- which surely could be in the tens of millions.
Comments
1+2+2+1+1= 7
That explains why we have so many tmz stories today! <!-- s:) -->:)<!-- s:) -->
Or he used her to catch the thief???
*confused like hell*
http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/0120_jackson.pdf
and I noticed the company listed as one of the plaintiffs is "Optimum Productions Inc."
I have never heard of this company before, maybe i missed the info being posted about it or something.
http://www.manta.com/c/mm58gd5/optimum-productions-inc
Michael Jackson is still the President of the company?
27 years in business takes us back to about 1983 - 84.
Optimum Productions Inc. is listed at the imbd database
Filmography as: Miscellaneous Company, Production Company
Miscellaneous Company - filmography
1. This Is It (2009) ... Licensing ("Beat It", "Black or White" and "HIStory Teaser") (as Optimum Productions / Epic Records), Licensing ("Moonwalker")
2. "Animal Shelf" (2000) ... Dubbing
3. "Rescue Heroes" (1999) ... Dubbing
4. Michael Jackson: HIStory on Film - Volume II (1997) (V) ... Video "Thriller"
5. Sailor Moon Super S the Movie: Black Dream Hole (1995) ... Dubbing
6. Michael Jackson: Video Greatest Hits - HIStory (1995) (V) ... Videos "Thriller", "Bad" And "The Way You Make Me Feel"
7. Sailor Moon S the Movie: Hearts in Ice (1994) ... Dubbing
8. Kero kero Keroppi (1994) (V) ... Dubbing
9. Sailor Moon R the Movie: The Promise of the Rose (1993) ... Dubbing
10. "Hello Kitty" (1993) ... Dubbing
Production Company - filmography
1. Michael Jackson: The One (2004) (TV) ... Production Company
2. Michael Jackson: Number Ones (2003) (V) ... Production Company (segments "Thriller", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel")
3. Sailor Moon Super S the Movie: Black Dream Hole (1995) ... Production Company
4. "Sailor Moon" (1995/I) ... Production Company
5. Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues (1988) (V) ... Production Company
6. Bad (1987) (V) ... Production Company
7. The Making of 'Thriller' (1983) (V) ... Production Company
8. Thriller (1983) (TV) ... Production Company
http://www.imdb.com/company/co0007470/
The website: http://www.optimumproductions.com/
When you click to enter the Events website you are taken to this web page: http://www.offerola.co.uk/
When you click to enter the Digital page you are taken to the real website, which I am now looking at now.
I will update if anything jumps out at me!
...what's with all the side-eye looks from MJ?
Just sayin'.
Data is updated weekly and is current as of Friday, January 14, 2011. It is not a complete or certified record of the entity.
Entity Name: OPTIMUM PRODUCTIONS
Entity Number: C1211598
Date Filed: 09/21/1983
Status: ACTIVE
Jurisdiction: CALIFORNIA
Entity Address: 1801 CENTURY PARK W
Entity City, State, Zip: LOS ANGELES CA 90067-6406
Agent for Service of Process: MICHAEL KANE
Agent Address: 15233 VENTURA BLVD 9TH FL
Agent City, State, Zip: SHERMAN OAKS CA 91403
Entity Details
File Number: 4174136 Incorporation Date / Formation Date: 06/13/2006
(mm/dd/yyyy)
Entity Name: THE MICHAEL JACKSON COMPANY, LLC
Entity Kind: LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (LLC) Entity Type: GENERAL
Residency: DOMESTIC State: DE
REGISTERED AGENT INFORMATION
Name: CORPORATION SERVICE COMPANY
Address: 2711 CENTERVILLE ROAD SUITE 400
City: WILMINGTON County: NEW CASTLE
State: DE Postal Code: 19808
Phone: (302)636-5401
Additional Information is available for a fee. You can retrieve Status for a fee of $10.00 or
more detailed information including current franchise tax assessment, current filing history
and more for a fee of $20.00.
So.. could it be that everyone's accusing eye is focused on Mann instead of the "real" thief that should be catched?
<!-- m -->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Catch_a_Thief<!-- m -->
It is this one.
Michael Kane
"This Is It" movie
Michael Kane .... business manager: Michael Jackson
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1477715/combined
I agree! And, 'The title of the movie is derived from the proverb "Set a thief to catch a thief"'. Maybe stupid questions but, Is Howard Mann his real name? Who is Sonia Lowe?
Found the lawsuit summary <!-- m -->http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit.asp?id=69968<!-- m -->
Sonia Lowe? <!-- m -->http://twitter.com/SoLowe<!-- m -->
It isn't this one.
shelby61 wrote:
Also, Michael Jackson Company LLC is NOT a California Company. It is a Delaware company. Many companies are incorporated in Delaware for tax reasons and also lawsuit protection.
___________________________
I know but Michael Jackson Company LLC is also on the Style of Cause on the Pleadings in this case and it is listed as California company, when in fact it was incorporated under the laws of Delaware. Just showing another discrepancy in this legal circus.
Sonia Lowe. Isn't she the reporter who does almost all the interviews with Katherine?
Howard Mann and VPM Vintage Pop Media <!-- m -->http://www.vintagepopmedia.com/<!-- m -->. The website is under construction for almost a year now.. <!-- s:? -->:?<!-- s:? --> Does VPM really exist or is it a ghost company?? (or is it called phantom company, IDK). So, is there actually an agreement between VPM and Katherine?
There was also an actor and comedian Howard Mann. His real name was Howard Mendelsohn. He died in 2008. Coincidence?
<!-- m -->http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0542783/<!-- m -->
I saw that too about the comedian. Found more info. maybe some of you already know: He's the President of Canadian company <!-- m -->http://www.dcnetcast.com/mgmt_team.html<!-- m --> and one of partners are Mahiram.com (Bollywood focus). I mentioned finding M2K Cinemas which may have nothing to do with this, but is based in India.
Challenging the Jackson estate
Toronto businessman aiming for slice of King of Pop’s pie
LOS ANGELES For someone trying to sell a book, it couldn’t get much better than this: Oprah Winfrey, America’s reader-in-chief, was holding up a glossy volume of Michael Jackson photographs for her vast television audience while tossing softball questions to its coauthor, the late singer’s 80-year-old mother.
The gauzily shot moment of marketing gold was not the work of the official Jackson estate but of a little-known Toronto businessman, Howard Mann, a brash, goateed 38-year-old who cut his teeth in the titillation trade — nude online gambling, a naked women’s wrestling league — and is now pursuing an unorthodox plan to profit from what he calls “the most valuable name in history.”
That plan is a direct challenge to the Jackson estate, the behemoth quasi-corporation whose carefully strategized promotion of the pop star’s legacy and ironhanded crackdown on unlicensed merchandise have translated into hundreds of millions in posthumous earnings. The brewing fight between the estate and Mann is the latest wrinkle in the settling of his affairs and another reminder that even in death, nothing involving the King of Pop is ever simple.
Mann is taking on the estate armed with two weapons — a legal loophole that he says gives him carte blanche to flout intellectual property laws, and an unlikely alliance with Jackson’s mother, Katherine. Frustrated with the size of her allowance from the estate, the family matriarch has entered into a business partnership with Mann in which she has given her blessing to the book and other projects and he has paid her what he said was “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“I’m very pleased working with Howard. He’s been very good to me,” she said recently.
These joint endeavours are becoming a headache for estate administrators, who seem reticent to offend Katherine Jackson, the guardian of the singer’s three children and a much admired figure to fans. A lawyer for the estate dismissed Mann’s novel legal theory as flawed, but the administrators have not moved to stop sales of his unauthorized Jackson products as they have with others who tried to cash in on Jackson’s name or likeness.
For the past five months, the estate has sat silent as Mann’s company, Vintage Pop Media, has touted its ownership of a trove of Jackson memorabilia — photos, personal papers, costumes and music — and hawked the book, calendars and other items on its website.
The estate’s lawyer, Howard Weitzman, said of Mann: “His day is coming. The estate will be taking appropriate legal action.”
In the scope of the Jackson empire, with its $273-million deal with Sony and the $260-million concert movie, Mann’s ventures — the $39.99 book and the $27.98 calendar — are small-time. However, his projects have hit a nerve in the delicate relationship between Jackson’s beloved mother and the two music veterans he tapped in his will to control his business affairs.
Under the terms of a private trust set up by the will, the singer’s children and his mother each get a 40 per cent share of the trust with the remainder going to charity. Upon Katherine Jackson’s death, her portion passes to the children. Jackson owed creditors about half a billion dollars at the time of his death. The estate remains in the red although massive music and merchandise deals as well as financial restructuring have significantly reduced the debt.
In a telephone interview, Katherine Jackson praised administrators John Branca and John McClain for doing “a very good job” managing the estate, but criticized her monthly cash allowance of $7,000 to $8,000 as inadequate and said it left her dependent on Mann to cover her expenses.
“I wish they would leave Howard alone and I wish they would leave me alone for working with Howard. I’m not greedy like people say. It’s need, not greed.”
The estate disputes the suggestion that administrators are not meeting her living expenses. Weitzman, the lawyer, noted that the allowance was approved by a probate judge and said the cash payments were only one aspect of the financial support that administrators provided. The estate also paid off the mortgage on the family home in Encino and foots the bill for household staff, security, vehicles, food, tuition and vacations.
“The estate has spent millions of dollars for Mrs. Jackson’s benefit and on the direct living expenses of both Mrs. Jackson and the children,” Weitzman said.
But for Katherine Jackson, it is not enough. “I think I should be getting more,” she said. She declined to specify why she needed the money. Her husband, Joe, sought an allowance from the court but was denied. Several other grandchildren also reside at the family home.
Finances were on her mind a few months after her son’s death when she was approached by Mann.
The business partners seem an odd pair: Katherine Jackson is a devout Jehovah’s Witness while much of Mann’s resumé is X-rated. Mann was the former chief executive of an online gambling site that featured topless porn stars as dealers and also headed up the Naked Women’s Wrestling League, an outfit that made its biggest headlines when it was sued by its hostess, Carmen Electra.
But when Mann introduced himself to Katherine Jackson a few months after her son’s June 2009 death, he offered her two things she wanted: money and the opportunity to protect her son’s reputation from yet another damaging press report.
Both stemmed from his purchase of an enormous memorabilia collection that Jackson’s parents had originally assembled for a planned family museum. Katherine and Joe Jackson subsequently developed financial problems and the collection was sold at a 2001 bankruptcy auction. Eventually, the memorabilia came into the possession of a New Jersey construction company owner, Henry Vaccaro Sr., who set up a pay-per-view website to profit from the material.
Michael Jackson sued Vaccaro and his company, Vintage Pop, for copyright infringement, cybersquatting, violation of his privacy rights and other claims in 2004, but the next year after his acquittal on child molestation charges, he decamped to Bahrain, refused to submit to a deposition and stopped paying his lawyers.
A federal judge dismissed the case in 2006 “with prejudice” — meaning the singer was barred from refiling the same claims.
After Jackson’s death, word that Vaccaro was trying to sell the collection reached Mann. He wasn’t a fan of Jackson’s music, but he had previously considered purchasing a music catalogue of early Jackson 5 recordings and he saw investment potential in the warehouse of old costumes, yellowing papers, artwork, pictures and recordings. When he looked closely, however, he concluded that the most valuable thing Vintage Pop had was not a particular piece of memorabilia but the court decision.
As Mann saw it, whoever owned Vintage Pop, the company Jackson had sued, was forever immunized against intellectual property suits from Jackson or his heirs and had free rein to make money from Jackson’s name.
“This is effectively a satellite estate. Its value is unfathomable,” Mann said.
Vaccaro and his family were stunned by his assessment of the judge’s declaration.
“We were thinking all this stuff, that’s the golden goose, the last thing we were thinking was this piece of paper,” recalled Vaccaro’s son-in-law, Mark Bahary, who was involved in the negotiations. In return, Vaccaro got an undisclosed amount of money and a slice of the profits.
After buying Vintage Pop, Mann approached Katherine Jackson to seek the family approval he felt was necessary before trying to sell merchandise to fans.
He said he told her he could provide regular cash payments with more ease than the estate, which was encumbered by her son’s debt.
He also told her a British tabloid was offering him “seven figures” for a “particular item” from the memorabilia locker. Mann declined to identify the item or the publication but said it was clear the paper’s goal was to smear Jackson’s memory.
At the family’s request, he destroyed the item and returned a box of other personal items to the family.
“He was nice enough to come to me with those things and I really appreciated what he did,” Katherine Jackson recalled.
The relationship has not been without missteps. This fall, Vintage Pop gave the gossip site TMZ a track from the memorabilia locker that the site advertised as never before released. It turned out to be a remix of an old Jacksons track, Destiny. The fan backlash was swift and brutal, and Mann had to issue an apology.
In addition to the book and other merchandise, Mann is working on a documentary based on 26 hours of Jackson family videotapes from the memorabilia locker. He is also planning a music-sharing site where users can remix some of the 273 Jackson music tracks from the memorabilia he bought.
“Long term, we believe the fan is going to want to buy the product that his mother feels is worthy to have his name attached,” Mann said.
Los Angeles Times
<!-- m -->http://www.thespec.com/feature/article/ ... son-estate<!-- m -->
“Long term, we believe the fan is going to want to buy the product that his mother feels is worthy to have his name attached,” Mann said. -> really? I hope Katherine is pulling the strings here in Michael's name, and not Mann.
Probably some of you already knew about this news, but this article caught my eye recently. I'm afraid there's much much more behind all this. <!-- s:? -->:?<!-- s:? --> I don't know what to think..What is TMZ telling us?? Who are the good guys, who's with Michael?
When he refused to return to the US to take part in the court proceedings the judge threw the case out, with the stipulation that it could not be filed again. This then gave Vintage Pop complete control over the items from that warehouse.
Enter Mann... So Mann saw a treasure trove of things that money could be made off of and Mann would be legally protected from being sued because of the judges stipulation, when the previous case was thrown out.
Mann needed to tie himself to the Jackson family, to legitimize his business and to gain exposure, to market the items he is selling. This isn't about money at all for Katherine. There was something in that warehouse that was very personal to Michael, Mann had it and he was willing to sell it. Unless Katherine cooperated with him, whatever he had was going to sold, published, and it would have hurt Michael and/or his reputation. The item itself doesn't necessarily have to have been "bad" either. It would just have been how a tabloid was going to present it.
This is BLACKMAIL!
The estate hasn't named Katherine in the suit because they know that she went into this partnership to protect Michael and get that "item" destroyed. Katherine doesn't need any more money than the estate is already providing her with, we can see that from how everything was broken down. Katherine is under a contract with Mann though so she can't just walk away but the estate can try to end this "partnership" thus shutting Mann down.
Katherine got the item; Michael has been protected. The Estate shuts down Mann; Katherine will then not be legally obliged to fulfill any contractual requirements and there will be no profits gained from any items that had been in the warehouse (which in essence have been stolen) and no association with the Jackson family either...Mann is therefore shut down, out of the "Michael Jackson" business.
To Catch a Thief...Brilliant!
Thank you for your explanation, S_D
I was thinking in the same direction. Still, I have my doubts about the fact that this article is a media source. How reliable is this information? Anyway, there's no doubt that when there's a lot of money involved money smelling sharks are unstoppable. That's a fact <!-- s:( -->:(<!-- s:( --> I hope justice wil prevail here as well.
<!-- s:shock: -->:shock:<!-- s:shock: --> 2 days RU serious? No, I can't recall. Do you know when this interview was? And may be the name of the interviewer? Sorry..silly questions, If you knew these things you would have found the interview already I guess <!-- s:oops: -->:oops:<!-- s:oops: --> <!-- s
It might be this interview on May 22, 2006 in the Dorchester Hotel. The interview is about Marc Schaffel, he had connections with Howard Mann. Michael wasn't aware of the business, he didn't know. Gem, did you mean this one?
[youtube:2vrknccq]
If it's not, I'll try to search tomorrow. I'm gonna sleep now, good night