Lifetime's Aaliyah biopic has been mired in protests from both the late R&B singer's fans and her family, since the project was announced nearly two weeks ago. There have been angry attacks on Zendaya, the Disney star cast to play Aaliyah, and there have been fan petitions aimed at closing down production on the movie.
But, of course, neither one of those things have the legal ability to stop — or at least, make difficult — the production of the biopic like Aaliyah's family can. “Because we control the masters [to Aaliyah's recordings], the rights and some images of the musical elements that we put together like the videos, and photo shoots and things that we did, what we can just withhold those elements from the production, which we would do,”
Aaliyah's cousin and president of Blackground Records — the record label that released all of her songs — Jomo Hankerson, told TheWrap. That can certainly place Lifetime's producers in a pinch, but it wouldn't stop the production from having Zendaya record new covers of Aaliyah's songs. Blackground Records may own Aaliyah's recordings, but it doesn't own publishing rights for the songs — many of which were written by Timbaland, Missy Elliott and Static Major, among others.
*thewrap.com
