Release and Legal Issues
Epic Records allowed Jackson to record the album for MCA Records on two conditions:
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was not to be released until after Christmas 1982. (This was to avoid the audiobook competing with Jackson's new album, Thriller.)
- The song "Someone In the Dark" was not to be released as a single.
The conditions were breached by MCA Records, which released the storybook in November 1982 and gave 7-inch promo copies of "Someone In the Dark" to radio stations. After Epic lodged a $2 million lawsuit, MCA Records were forced to withdraw the album and prohibited from releasing "Someone In the Dark" as a single. Epic executives had felt that MCA were misleading members of the public into believing that the then-recently released single "The Girl Is Mine" was featured on the storybook album. The plaintiffs further requested that MCA Records be banned from working with Jackson in the future and that any other media owned by MCA featuring the singer be prohibited from release.
As a result of the legal restrictions that prohibited the public release of "Someone In the Dark" as a single, the promo copies which were made have since become one of the singer's rarest and most sought-after records; some have been sold for over £1000 ($1587). The song was later included as a bonus track on the 2001 special edition of Thriller, as well as the box set Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection.
Read more about this topic: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (album)
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