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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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Jello Biafra ordered to pay $220,000 in back royalties
Friday June 20, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello
Biafra must pay $220,000 in back royalties and other damages to the
other members of his band, an appeals court judge has ruled.
A three-judge panel of a state appeals court in an unpublished
opinion Wednesday upheld an earlier ruling against Biafra for
breach of contract and fraud.
The panel also decided that the band's creative output,
including songs ``Holiday in Cambodia'' and ``Kill the Poor,''
belongs to a partnership formed among the four band members.
But the panel reversed the lower court's decision to break up
the partnership, remanding the case back to the trial court to
determine whether a partnership among the punks should be dissolved
and its assets sold.
``Biafra's fraudulent actions precipitated the rift in the
partnership and made it impossible for the partnership to carry on
its business as it had in the past,'' Justice Maria P. Rivera wrote
for the court.
The San Francisco-based punk band performed together from 1978
to 1986. The band recently re-formed without Biafra and is playing
again as the Dead Kennedys, according to its publicist, Josh Mills.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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