Stravinsky's widow and children litigated his estate for four years, and the dispute over the royalties reached a New York appeals court in 2003

Igor Stravinsky's will put his whole estate, mostly copyrights and royalties, in trust for his second wife, Vera. On her death the trust would be split into nine shares: two each to his children Theodore, Soulima and Milene and his granddaughter Catherine, and one to his assistant Robert Craft. After the executors accounted in 1975, Vera claimed a 40% community property share because many works were written in California. The children, some living in France, claimed forced shares under French law and won a French order freezing French royalties. After four years of litigation, the parties settled before Surrogate Millard Midonick on 9 October 1979. Vera kept 38.93% of royalties for life and 20% outright after death. Vera died in September 1982 and left her estate, including that 20%, to Craft. In 1983 the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel bought the Stravinsky archive for $5.25 million. The heirs went back to court over whether "such royalties" covered French income (1987, yes) and British copyrights that reverted in 1996 (Surrogate's Court 2001, affirmed by the Appellate Division on 30 December 2003). The archive is in Basel in 2026.