Burton Cummings, the original singer and songwriter in the classic rock band the Guess Who is going to extreme measures to prevent what he calls a "fake" version of the band to perform his songs and he's willing to give up some of his royalties to do it, according to Rolling Stone.
This comes after Cummings and original Guess Who guitarist Randy Bachman filed a lawsuit in October against the current version of the band as well as their former band mates - original drummer Garry Peterson and bassist Jim Kale.
In that legal action, Cummings and Bachman claimed that the group that presently holds the trademark of the Guess Who is "a cover band" the uses original recordings of the band in advertising "in an effort to boost the Cover Band's ticket sales for live performances and to give the false impression that Plaintiffs are performing."
While that case continues after a federal judge denied the current band's motion to dismiss it, Cummings has upped the ante by terminating the performance rights agreements for all his songs he wrote for the Guess Who, which effectively takes away all protections from the new version of the Guess Who - or other performers - from playing such Guess Who classics as "American Woman," "These Eyes" and other songs in concert.
Apparently, this means that Lenny Kravitz, who had a hit with his version of "American Woman" in 1999, won't be able to perform the song on his next tour.
"I'm willing to do anything to stop the fake band; they're taking [Bachman and my] life story and pretending it's theirs," Cummings told Rolling Stone. "They're not the people who made these records and they shouldn't act like they did. This doesn't stop this cover band from playing their shows, it just stops them from playing the songs I wrote. If the songs are performed by the fake Guess Who, they will be sued for every occurrence."
This is a particularly rare move, because songwriters rarely own their own publishing, but Cummings does and he's willing to forgo royalties to prevent the current version of the Guess Who from performing his songs.
According to Rolling Stone, Cummings' lawyer fired off a letter to the attorneys repping the current band that warned as of April 1, "none of the venues in which The Cover Band is currently scheduled to Perform possess the requisite license needed to publicly perform" Cummings' songs, and that "Should the individual members of the Cover Band publicly perform any of [Cummings' publishing company] Shillelagh Music's Compositions, Shillelagh Music intends to institute legal action to protect its copyright interests."
As a result of the legal threat, the current version of the Guess Who canceled two shows that were scheduled in Florida "due to an unforeseen issue with music licensing." And this morning (April 11), three other venues in Florida followed suit.
Cummings seems pleased his strategy is working so far. "I'm going to lose some money, but... the name is worthless without those songs," he told Rolling Stone. "So what are they going to do? 'Hey, the Guess Who Is playing but we can't do "Share The Land" or "American Woman," we can't do "These Eyes."' Nobody's gonna be there."
