Sylvester Stewart p/k/a Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against his longtime manager, Jerry Goldstein, alleging Goldstein stole $80 million in licensing and royalty income, and filed a trademark for Sly and the Family Stone without Stone’s permission. He also alleges Goldstein never provided him any royalty accounting for albums between 1989 and 2009 and the manager breached his fiduciary duty. Read more from The Hollywood Reporter Esq. blog which also includes a link to the complaint.
The complaint hits straight out the issue of the running of the statute of limitations on the causes of action. Stone claims active concealment on the part of the defendants which kept him from discovering the wrongdoing as well as the continuing fiduciary duty that Goldstein owed Stone.
In addition to the 29 stated causes of action in the 111 page complaint, Stone also filed with the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeals Board a petition to cancel U.S. trademark Registration No. 2920734 for the mark SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE registered in the name of Even St. Productions, Ltd. The petition cites the grounds of cancellation as: Deceptiveness, False Suggestion of a Connection, Misrepresentation of the Source of the Goods or Services, and Likelihood of Confusion.
As a side note and a little Texas trivia, Sly Stone was born in Denton, Texas … just a few miles up the road from my office.
October 31st, 2010 at 10:53 pm
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