Michael Jackson is proving to be just as controversial in death as in life. Yesterday as Jackson's first posthumous single, This is It, was released, the estate of the late singer was forced to admit that much of the material was lifted from a composition by Canadian singer-songwriter Paul Anka -- and agreed to split the royalties 50-50.
What is it with Canadian songs that Americans think they can just run and get away with it? Many are familiar with how the songwriters of the Whitney Houston hit The Greatest Love of All got caught with their pants down when it was discovered that a large section of the song was a rip-off of Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind.
I kind of wish that this had gone to court. Reports were that Jackson was a half billion in debt before his sudden passing although a lot of that has been paid off with the upsurge in sales of the back catalog ... oh yeah, "the children, won't somebody please think of the children?" (From The Simpsons, a long running gag.)
Paul Anka? I could laugh if it was Tom Green or Stompin' Tom Connors or even Gilles Vigneault. Mike really must have done it his way, if he thought he could get away with it. At least his estate is more graceful in his death than his company would have been if he was still alive.
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