Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Over Universal Music Vault Fire
In a stunning twist, a judge dismissed a class action lawsuit by a number of iconic artists over the 2008 Universal Music Vault fire where hundreds of thousands of master recordings were allegedly destroyed. While far more artists were thought to be affected, the original lawsuit was brought by the Tupac and Tom Petty estates as well as Soundgarden, Hole and Steve Earl. The Universal fire took place on the Universal/NBC lot in 2008, but the possible extent of the damage wasn’t reported until a New York Times article last year.
The lawsuit seemed to be in trouble from the start. First Hole was removed from the lawsuit when it was discovered that none of the group’s masters were damaged in the fire. Then both the Tupac estate, Soundgarden and Steve Earle pulled out, although the details of why have not been revealed.
That left the estate of Tom Petty headed by Petty’s wife, Jane Petty. The judge found that while some recordings may have been destroyed in the fire, they were owned by Petty’s former record label MCA (now a part of Universal Music) and not by the estate, therefore the suit could not go forward.
Universal always contended that the extent of the damage caused by the vault fire was exaggerated in the original Times article, and since then the company has worked hard to get the bottom of exactly what had been destroyed. While that may never be fully determined, it looks like that at least for now, artists have accepted that either their masters weren’t involved, or that they didn’t own them anyway.
It’s still possible that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and others may file once more in the future, but it’s also possible that we may never hear of it again. Universal has said that many of the destroyed masters where backed up digitally and that future generations will still be able to hear this iconic music in full fidelity. While streaming services aren’t the best way to tell about the fidelity of a release, someday all platforms will raise their standard resolutions and then we’ll see for sure if that’s true.
