list-of-unreleased-michael-jackson-material

alt=An African American man in his mid-twenties wearing a sequined military jacket and dark sunglasses. He walks and waves his right hand, which is adorned with a white glove. His left hand is bare. Michael Jackson in 1984

[Michael Jackson] was an American musician and entertainer. He is known to have written, recorded and filmed material that has never been officially released. Many of the pop singer's unreleased songs have been registered—usually by his company Mijac Music—with professional bodies such as the [United States Copyright Office] , the [Songwriters Hall of Fame] , [Broadcast Music Incorporated] (BMI), [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] (ASCAP), the [Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency] (CMRRA) and [EMI Music Publishing] .Halstead, p. 1 This list, however, only documents the songs explicitly cited as being unreleased and, therefore, does not contain every unreleased Jackson song registered with such bodies.

Jackson—along with [Lionel Richie] , [Quincy Jones] , [Rod Temperton] and [Joseph Jackson] —faced a copyright infringement suit in 1993. The lawsuit came after three songwriters alleged that the pop star and his fellow defendants had plagiarized the hits " [The Girl Is Mine] ", " [Thriller] " and " [We Are the World] ".Campbell, p. 89Grant, p. 168 During a seven-hour deposition, Jackson named numerous unreleased songs that he had written or co-written. Following the testimony, a nine-member jury found the defendants not guilty of plagiarism.