Duke Ellington's grandchildren beat their father's estate for his royalties, then lost to EMI over foreign earnings

On 19 December 1961 Duke Ellington signed a copyright renewal agreement with Mills Music. It bound all his heirs and gave the publisher the renewal rights to his songs. In return the publisher paid the family 50 percent of the "net revenue actually received" from foreign publication. Ellington died in 1974. In 1989 his only child, Mercer, signed a contract that irrevocably transferred future songwriter royalties to three of his children, Mercedes, Gaye and Edward. After Mercer died, his estate fought those three children for the money, arguing the contract was an illegal device to evade taxes. In January 2006 the Appellate Division, First Department, ruled unanimously for the children: 20 percent each of the songwriter's share, back to January 2002, and nothing to Mercer's estate. Grandson Paul Ellington then audited EMI, the successor to Mills. He found EMI's own affiliated foreign subpublishers kept 50 percent of foreign income before the family's half was calculated, so the family received about 25 percent of the total. He sued, calling it double-dipping. On 23 October 2014 New York's Court of Appeals ruled 5 to 2 for EMI. The contract was clear, and the affiliates did not exist in 1961. Judge Jenny Rivera dissented, joined by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, warning that the ruling invited "corporate reconfigurations that avoid the understanding of the parties."