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A long-running legal battle over the rights to Jimi Hendrix’s music is going to trial after a U.K. appeals court rejected Sony Music’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit filed by his former bandmates.
The estates of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell say they own a share of the rights to three albums created by the trio’s Jimi Hendrix Experience, and they’ve been battling in court with Sony and Experience Hendrix LLC for more than three years to prove it.

In a ruling Thursday, the U.K.’s Court of Appeal upheld a decision issued last year that said the dispute must be decided at trial, rejecting Sony’s request to overturn that ruling and dismiss the case: “In my judgment the judge was correct,” Lord Justice Richard Arnold wrote in the new ruling, obtained by Billboard.

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In a statement celebrating that ruling, a rep for Redding and Mitchell’s heirs say that their case is now scheduled to proceed to trial in December – more than four years after they first sued.

“Noel and Mitch first issued their complaint in November 2021 and after the latest delaying tactic of Sony to deny them justice the case now moves to a full trial,” said Edward Adams, a director for the heirs. “We retain our faith in the justice system that they and [Experience Hendrix] will be finally held fully to account at that time.”

A spokesperson for Sony did not immediately return a request for comment on the ruling.

Hendrix teamed up with Redding and Mitchell in 1966 to form the Experience, and the trio went on to release a number of now-iconic songs including “All Along The Watchtower,” which spent nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 and peaked at No. 20. The group split up in 1969, a little over a year before Hendrix died suddenly at the age of 27 from an accidental drug overdose.

The current fight kicked off in 2021, when Redding and Mitchell’s heirs sent a letter in the U.K. claiming they own a stake in Hendrix’s music and arguing that they’re owed millions in royalties.

Experience Hendrix, a company that owns his intellectual property, and Sony, which distributes his music under a licensing deal, responded a month later by preemptively suing in New York federal court, aiming to disprove those allegations. Redding and Mitchell’s heirs then filed their own case against Sony in British court, seeking control of the records and accusing the label of copyright infringement.

After months of jockeying, a U.S. federal judge ruled in 2023 that the English litigation could take precedence.

Seeking to end that lawsuit, Sony argued that Redding and Mitchell both signed away their rights shortly after Hendrix died. In a 1973 legal settlement cited by Sony, the two men purportedly agreed not to sue Jimi’s estate and any record companies distributing his music in return for one-time payments — $100,000 paid to Redding and $247,500 to Mitchell.

But last year, a judge on London’s High Court ruled that the dispute – over “arguably the greatest rock guitarist ever” — was close enough that it would need to be decided at trial.

“My overall conclusion is that the claims in respect of copyright and performers’ property rights survive and should go to trial,” Justice Michael Green wrote at the time. The judge wrote that Redding and Mitchell’s heirs had “a real prospect of succeeding” on their argument that the decades-old releases “do not provide a complete defence” for Sony.

Sony appealed that ruling, setting the stage for Thursday’s decision. In doing so, the company didn’t actually challenge judge’s ruling on the core issue of the 1973 settlement; instead, Sony’s lawyers argued that Redding and Mitchell’s heirs were ineligible to file their case under various U.K. statutes.

Joined by two other appellate judges on the panel, Lord Justice Arnold rejected those arguments on Thursday, ruling that the heirs’ claims were fair game under the statutes cited by Sony.

It’s unclear if Sony will file further appeals, or whether such additional challenges might delay the trial beyond December. Such rulings can typically be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the country’s highest appeals court; but like the U.S. Supreme Court, the British top court only accepts a limited number of cases, based on whether they raise big and important legal questions.

If the case does proceed to trial, attorneys for the Redding and Mitchell estates said Thursday that they were looking forward to the showdown. In the statement, they compared their late clients to the Freddie Mercury’s bandmates in Queen.

“No one is denying that Jimi Hendrix was one of the greatest guitarists of all time, just as Freddie Mercury was a great singer. But neither of them made their recordings alone,” said Lawrence Abramson of the law firm Keystone Law. “It has never been suggested that Brian May, John Deacon nor Roger Taylor should not have participated in Queen’s success so why should Noel and Mitch lose out from the success of the Jimi Hendrix Experience?”