Former Journey singer Steve Perry has dropped a lawsuit that he filed last November to stop some demos he made in the early '90s from being heard by the public. The case was scheduled to go to trial on June 25.

The news comes via the Blast, who saw the court documents. Instead of suing, Perry will attend mediation with Phil Brown, the musician with whom Perry recorded the tracks, at an unknown date this month.

Perry cut the demos on an eight-track recorder in Brown's garage for $1,500. According to the original court filings, Perry said that “he did not perform them as he would if the recordings were intended for public release," that the singer "owns all intellectual property rights in said vocal performances" and "Brown abandoned any claim to those performances in 2002.”

However, after Perry's Traces came out in October 2018 and put him back in the public eye, Brown began making noises about releasing the tapes. A month later a judge granted Perry's request for a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent the demos from coming out until the case could he heard in court.

In response, Brown has maintained that he "has at all times maintained both creative and physical control over the Brown/Perry songs. As such, under long-standing controlling authority, Brown had, and continues to have, the right to independently license, sell, perform, or otherwise monetize the four Brown/Perry songs without the consent of his co-author, Perry, so long as Brown later accounts to Perry for Perry’s portion of any resultant proceeds."

 

Steve Perry Through the Years

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