Music Career, Disputes With Creedence Clearwater Revival
In 1955 he joined Fantasy Records, for many years the largest independent jazz record label in the world. In 1967 Zaentz and other partners purchased the label from founders Max and Sol Weiss. The partners signed roots-rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), fronted by former Fantasy warehouseman John Fogerty. made a fortune for Zaentz and Fantasy.
Fantasy Records owns the distribution and publishing rights to the music of CCR, and to extricate himself from his original contract with Fantasy John Fogerty signed away even more than the original contract had stipulated. Further, bad investments by Zaentz and Fantasy, seemingly on the group's behalf, cost CCR millions of dollars, some of which they successfully recouped through legal proceedings. In the 1980s, Zaentz sued Fogerty for plagiarizing himself asking $140 million in damages, and lost (Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty); Fogerty sued for reimbursement of attorneys' fees and won in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Fogerty v. Fantasy, 510 U.S. 517 (1994). The songs "Zanz Kant Danz" and "Mr. Greed" from Fogerty's album Centerfield are thinly veiled slams at Zaentz.
Zaentz brought a series of lawsuits against Fogerty, claiming defamation of character for the lyric "Zanz can't dance but he'll steal your money," and also claiming that the fundamental music in "The Old Man Down the Road" was a lift from the Fantasy-copyrighted-but-Fogerty-written song "Run Through the Jungle" from CCR's smash 1970 album Cosmo's Factory. The defamation issue was settled, with Warner Bros. and Fogerty changing the title and lyric to "Vanz Kant Danz". Zaentz lost on the copyright issue as a jury found Fogerty not liable. Fogerty in turn claimed the label misled him about investing and managing his earnings from royalties, resulting in a devastating financial loss. Years later, when Zaentz sold his interest in Fantasy, Fogerty almost immediately re-signed with the label.
Read more about this topic: Saul Zaentz
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