A suit stemming from August 2018 against Eye Records has come to a close, with the Prince estate reportedly being awarded $7 million and the added comfort that all bootlegged releases associated with the Purple One will be taken down.
That's the takeaway from legal documents obtained and reported on by TMZ, who said Friday that a judge had sided with the estate in its suit against the label, described therein as merely a "bootleg label" dedicated to sharing apparently unauthorized releases from the late multi-genre icon.
The millions ordered paid out and the pulled releases stem from a default judgment, all the result of the 2018 suit the estate filed in response to the alleged release and promotion of 18 posthumous Prince comps. Per the suit, none of those releases—ranging from live show recording to unreleased cuts—were facilitated with the agreement of the estate.
An accompanying website for these bootleged moneymakers, for which the estate was originally asking $2 million per trademark violation, has already been removed.
If you're looking for officially sanctioned Prince releases, there's plenty to go around. Posthumously, Warner Bros. released Piano and a Microphone 1983 in September, while NPG and Warner Bros. dropped Originals just last month. The latter first arrived via a TIDAL-exclusive streaming release and includes demo versions of tracks like "Manic Monday" and "Jungle Love."
