Sex Pistols to find out result of High Court battle over use of band’s songs
The group’s former drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones brought legal action against the band’s ex-singer Johnny Rotten, real name John Lydon.
Former members of the Sex Pistols will find out the result of their legal battle over the band’s songs being used in a television series.
The punk group’s former drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones are suing the band’s ex-singer Johnny Rotten, real name John Lydon, to allow their songs to be used in TV drama Pistol, directed by Danny Boyle.
The six-part series, which is being made by Disney and is due to air next year, is based on a 2016 memoir by Mr Jones called Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol.
But Mr Lydon, who has previously told the Sunday Times he thinks the series is the “most disrespectful shit I’ve ever had to endure”, argued that licences cannot be granted without his consent.
His lawyers told the court that the agreement had never been used and that he considers it a “nuclear button” for the claimants and their manager, Anita Camerata, to “impose their wishes” on him.
They said he had a “deep-felt and passionate aversion to becoming a ‘prisoner’ of a hostile majority” and in his evidence to the court, Mr Lydon said the agreement “smacks of some kind of slave labour”.
They also said the court could not accept his evidence as true because it was a “straightforward lie” and he could not “genuinely have believed the agreement was never effective”.
They told the court Mr Cook and Mr Jones’ claim is against Mr Lydon alone, and that original band member Glen Matlock, who was replaced by Sid Vicious, and representatives of the estate of Vicious, who died in February 1979, supported their position.
