Daughter Of Coxsone Dodd, Producer & Bob Marley Mentor, Sued For “Infringing” On Her Father’s Intellectual Property

Morna Dodd, a daughter of Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd, the late producer responsible for discovering and mentoring Bob Marley and credited for the early development of Ska and Reggae, has been sued by the administrators of her father’s estate for infringement on his intellectual property.

According to the Daily Mail, last week in the UK High Court, the estate’s lawyers complained that the 63-year-old had passed off her Reggae-themed bar in Birmingham — the Coxsone Lounge — as being connected to the late producer’s estate.

She was subsequently ordered to strip her father’s name from her bar, and, in addition, was told she had no right to license some of the pioneering Studio One producer’s music to a Japanese company, which she did last year.

According to the Daily Mail, she could now be pursued by the Jamaican state for any profits she made after the ruling by the High Court.

Clement Dodd died in 2004 at age 72, leaving assets valued at millions of pounds, including shares in Jamaica Recording and Publishing Company Limited (Studio One), the company which licences his extensive catalog of music of approximately 6,000 titles, to members of his family.

His music catalog includes recordings by The Wailers, Marcia Griffiths, Alton Ellis, Bob Andy, Delroy Wilson, Burning Spear, The Heptones, Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott, and Freddie McGregor.

According to the Daily Mail, “after a series of spats in the Jamaican courts and the High Court in London”, Morna who is now 63, is still fighting to receive her share of her famous father’s riches.

According to the lawyers, Mr. Dodd’s estate has been deadlocked due to a series of “competing claims” being made by other potential heirs, which has resulted in the administration of the estate being taken over by the Administrator General of Jamaica.

“Whatever her entitlement under that will, such assets are currently the property of the estate… Any share of assets Mrs Dodd is entitled to have not yet vested in her and so she is not entitled to exploit the same,” one of the estate’s lawyers is quoted as saying.

According to the Daily Mail, Morna, who represented herself in court, had insisted that she did not “mean to do anything wrong and claimed she needed money to pay lawyers in the long-running fight over her inheritance”.

She also told the judge that she was “financially embarrassed”.

“It’s been going on for 17 years – for 17 years I have pleaded with them…  They say I can’t even attribute the lounge to my dad. There are 6,000 copyright titles, and I used 20,” she is quoted as saying.

Earlier this year, The Gleaner newspaper reported that Dodd’s last will and testament was “still waiting to be actualised, as the case remains at the Office of the Administrator General”.

At the time, the newspaper reported that Morna had said  “scientific proof of her relationship to Sir Coxsone is being requested”, by persons contesting his will, due supposedly to the fact that his name is not on her birth certificate.

“I have no problem doing a DNA test, as there is absolutely no doubt who is my father. I look just like my Nan [Sir Coxsone’s mother], and my sons look like my father. But why wasn’t I told all of this 16 years ago, and how exactly will this DNA test be carried out?”

She had said the DNA request had been made on March 18 during a Zoom meeting with some of the parties involved, including lawyers and a representative from the Administrator General’s Department.

“I looked about getting my father’s name on my birth certificate, because we all know how it used to be back in the day, and sometimes even now. So, at that meeting, I was instructed that I needed to inform all my siblings what I was doing. And that was when my sister’s lawyer said that they needed scientific proof of my relationship to my dad…,” she had explained.

After Sir Coxsone died in 2004, her brother Clement Dodd Jr, who was also the son of her mother Una Hutchinson, and the producer’s first child, took their stepmother Norma and stepsister Carol to court over their father’s will.

Dodd Jr had filed the suit in the Supreme Court in Jamaica in 2006, claiming that his name was wrongfully struck from Sir Coxsone’s will, which was made in December 1987, and which prevented him from earning royalties from Jamrec, the publishing company of Dodd Jr’s Studio One label which the producer had bequeathed to him.

According to documents filed with the Supreme Court, Sir Coxsone’s will states, among other things that: “I give, devise and bequeath to my mother aforesaid to my wife Norma and to my children Clement (Junior), Courtney, Paulette, Carol, Morna and Claudia in equal shares all my estate and interest in premises situated at 13 Brentford Road, Kingston 5, together with all my shares in the Jamaica Recording and Publishing Company Limited, with offices at 13 Brentford Road, Kingston 5.”

However, Dodd Jr’s stepmother and sister had claimed that his name was deliberately removed by Sir Coxsone.

The matter of the Studio One producer’s will has continued to be tumultuous. Even though Clement Junior won the court case in 2010, he died in 2015, before anything could be settled.   In addition, Sir Coxsone’s widow Norma died in 2010, while his mother, who was named one of the executors, predeceased him.

Morna had told The Gleaner in the interview in March that she had a company called Studio One UK, which her father approved of, and was in the process of releasing new music.

She had also said that while had never received any statements, royalties, or anything financial from her father’s estate, she had struck a deal with an interested party.

“It has been 16 years, and there is a will, but I have not received a cent in all this time. There has been no statement, whether quarterly or otherwise, about the accounts. It’s COVID time; I don’t want to die and leave it,” she had said.