When an artist wins a Grammy Award, the Recording Academy insists that a form be signed with the artist agreeing that they will not sell the Grammy. Failure to live up to the agreement allows the Academy to, in effect, repossess the award.
That’s why they have taken action, suing Gotta Have It! Collectibles in New York, for putting John Lennon’s Grammy from 1966 for writing Michelle on the auction block. Gotta Have It! currently has a starting bid of $40,000 on the award but no bids have been placed.
The Academy is accusing Gotta Have It! and an unnamed owner of the award with “fraud, false advertising, unfair competition and tortious interference with contractual relations.”
Here’s the strange thing about the action. According to Gotta Have It!, this same award was sold twelve years ago by Christie’s Auction House for $35,850 yet the Recording Academy did not try and block that sale.
John LennonMichelle is one of the best known records that was never officially released as a single in the U.S. On the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album, the song received a great deal of airplay and went on to be recorded by a host of artists but does not rank among the Fab Four’s chart achievements, although it did see release in some countries reaching 2 in New Zealand, 3 in Austria and 1 in Norway. Other popular songs that never were released as singles in the U.S. include Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven and Madonna’s Into the Groove.
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