Prince onstage during the 2012 iHeartRadio Music Festival.
Christopher Polk/Getty
This Friday, April 21, an EP of unreleased Prince music was due to be released. The title track from the project, titled Deliverance, was released earlier this week. However the EP was pulled from iTunes following a lawsuit filed by Paisley Park and Prince’s estate against engineer and collaborator George Ian Boxill, who compiled the EP following Prince's death. In a statement from RMA, the label behind the EP, on Tuesday, the label confirmed that the release had been blocked by court order but said that the "Deliverance" single will continue to be sold.
“The Federal Court located in Minnesota has temporarily enjoined the release of the remaining unreleased tracks on the Deliverance EP," wrote Matthew Wilson, attorney for RMA. "The court order has not enjoined the released single ‘Deliverance.’ Therefore the ‘Deliverance’ single will continue to be sold.”
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As of this writing, the single is only available on RMA's purchase website, but David Staley, co-founder of RMA, told Rolling Stone on Thursday that he believes the single will soon return to major platforms. "I was pleased by the ruling last night, which in a nutshell indicated everything that has been released up to the time of the judge's ruling, late evening April 19th, can be and should be enjoyed by the fans," he said.
In the lawsuit, Prince's Estate claimed that Boxill had allegedly signed a confidentiality agreement stating that his work with Prince “would remain Prince’s sole and exclusive property.” The lawsuit states that the EP could damage the interests of Prince and Paisley Park both “permanently and irreparably.” The court ordered block on the release of the EP is temporary and lasts until May 3.
