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Cher asked the court on Wednesday to block the
trust that administers Sonny Bono's royalties from terminating
her rights from a divorce settlement that granted her half of
Sonny & Cher's royalties.
Mary Bono, the trust's sole trustee, didn't immediately respond
to a request for comment; neither did Cher's attorney Peter
Anderson of Davis Wright Tremaine.
Cher and Sonny Bono began performing together as Sonny & Cher in
1964, married in 1967, and divorced in 1978. The complaint said
they had agreed to divide the royalties from songs like "I Got
You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On" equally after their divorce.
Under the Copyright Act, authors can cancel transfers of their
copyrights and reclaim them after 35 years in some
circumstances. The provision has been at the center of recent
disputes involving Marvel, its parent company Disney, and Major
League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies.
According to the complaint, the Bono Collection Trust claimed
that its 2016 notices of termination to several music publishers
also ended Cher's royalty rights.
Cher said the trust told her last month that it would stop
paying her share of the royalties when the terminations go into
effect, and that she no longer had the right to approve uses of
their songs, among other things.
Cher asked the court for a declaratory judgment that the estate
didn't terminate her rights, and requested at least $1 million
in damages for breaching the divorce settlement.
The case is Cher v. Bono, U.S. District Court for the Central
District of California, No. 2:21-cv-08157.
For Cher: Peter Anderson of Davis Wright Tremaine
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