The Michael Jackson estate has objected to an ABC TV special premiering on Thursday, which focuses on the end of Jackson’s life, viewing the programming as exploitative.
According to The Kansas City Star, the two-hour documentaryThe Last Days of Michael Jackson wasn’t sponsored or approved by Jackson’s family, and will probably infringe on their intellectual property rights.
“We want consumers to know that The Last Days of Michael Jackson, a television special airing on ABC TV (a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company) tomorrow May 24, is not sponsored or approved by the Estate of Michael Jackson,” the estate told Complex over email. “It is particularly disheartening that Disney, a company known to strongly believe in protecting its own IP rights, would choose to ignore these rights belonging to the Estate.”
The statement continued, “ABC was using a copyrighted photo and silhouette image owned by the Estate in the trailers and promotional material for the special. Only after notice from our attorneys to ABC News indicating they were infringing on our IP rights were the materials removed. We are told ABC intends to use music and other intellectual property owned by the Estate such as photos, logos, artwork, and more in the program itself, without having licensed the rights to any such material. Imagine if this was done with any of ABC’s intellectual property. We believe the special to be another crass and unauthorized attempt to exploit the life, music and image of Michael Jackson without respect for Michael’s legacy, intellectual property rights or his children.”
Advertisements for the special have shown that it will divulge previously unknown information on Jackson, highlighting his decline before his death at the age of 50 on June 25, 2009.
In the days leading up to his death, Jackson had been taking prescription anesthetic to help him sleep before he went on a series of concerts titled “This Is It,” later dying of acute propofol intoxication. His personal physician Conrad Murray was charged in 2011 with providing Jackson a deadly dose of the drug; Murray subsequently spent two years in prison.
