14 DAY TRIAL // The Michael Jackson Estate released yesterday “This Is It,” a never-before-heard Michael Jackson track, to promote the upcoming docu-film that drops at the end of the month. Some might have found that it sounded like a hit of 20 years ago, “I Never Heard” by Safire, and that’s because it was practically the same song, as music icon Paul Anka has stepped forward to claim, as E! Online can confirm.
The truth about the “new” Michael Jackson song is that it’s actually a track dating 20 years ago that was “stolen” by the singer from Anka’s studio. Anka and Jackson co-wrote the original and then recorded the vocals for it for what was Anka’s duets album “Walk a Fine Line,” it has emerged. Michael Jackson later returned to the studio and took the tapes, which were just recently used by the MJ Estate to make the new song, “This Is It,” without even crediting Anka as co-writer and clearly in violation of his copyright.
Understandably, the music icon immediately alerted the Estate and Sony about the infringement, threatening to pursue legal action if the parties continued to ignore him. The Estate eventually agreed to offer him 50% of the publishing rights, along with an official apology for using his song without permission, because it was clearly not aware of the circumstances in which it was written and then taken.
“All is well once again in Michael Jackson Litigation Land – but things were looking dicey for a minute. Crooner Paul Anka, who perhaps most famously penned the lyrics to the Frank Sinatra standard ‘My Way,’ says that Jackson’s estate has apologized to him for releasing the single ‘This Is It’ without properly acknowledging Anka as a co-writer on the tune. After publicly griping and threatening legal action if the matter of compensation wasn’t taken care of, Anka said Monday afternoon that estate administrator John McClain called him up make amends.” E! informs.
With Anka saying the violation was “an honest mistake” and the Michael Jackson Estate now giving him due credit for the song, the matter has been laid to rest. The late King of Pop’s final work, the documentary comprised of footage shot during rehearsals for London’s O2 comeback shows, will go ahead as scheduled, hopefully without further bumps in the road.