Universal Music Group is accusing Prince’s estate of major fraud and have just filed a major lawsuit against them as a result. This whole thing started over a deal that Prince probably wouldn’t have wanted his estate to make in the first place. Well, at least if we base it off of the countless times throughout his career that he’s made it very clear he did not want corporate giants to have the rights to sell his music.

It took Prince decades to finally license his music to any other company when, in 2016, he did a deal with Jay-Z’s and Beyonce’s Tidal streaming service to exclusively license his new album because he said he liked Jay-Z and Bey,’ so he wanted to support their efforts.

However, months after his death in April 2016, his then estate handlers did a $30 million licensing deal with Universal Music Group for exclusive rights to much of Prince’s catalog classics and his new music and unreleased material. A move that Prince, who by the time of his death, owned his masters had not done.

Fast forward to today, and Universal is now demanding their $30 mil’ back from the estate and is blaming two attorneys- who were over Prince’s estate at the time- for trying to run game on them with a shady contract.

Why Universal Is Really Suing Prince’s Estate

The lawyers UMG is gunning for is Prince’s longtime friend/his attorney L. Londell McMillan; and atty. Charles Koppelman. See what Universal’s blaming them for below:

Via Boombox: According to Billboard, Universal Music Group wants to cancel the deal it made with the singer’s estate for $31 million, which would’ve allowed them to have exclusive licensing rights to the songs the singer made after 1996, when he released music under NPG Records.

The deal would’ve also allowed UMG to license the music that Prince released between the years of 1979-1996, when he was still on Warner Bros., and that portion of the deal was supposed to start in 2018. But based on a letter sent to the acting administrator Comerica Bank, UMG has accused Prince’s estate of fraud, and they want the $31 million back.

According to UMG, they had problems licensing Prince’s music on April 21, on the one-year anniversary of his death, which was the first sign of trouble. Then they learned that the earlier music that could be streamed once 2018 started, is actually under contract with Warner Bros until 2021, making it impossible.

Three of Prince’s siblings-Sharon, Norrine, and John Nelson- have also retained attorney L. Londell McMillan as their business advisor. It’s gonna be interesting to see how this plays out.