News Articles

Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan Sued Over Marked Video

Billy Corgan Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan found himself on the receiving end of a breach of contract lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday (May 22), accusing the singer of stealing and allowing the commercial release of a video/documentary from 1986 entitled Video Marked.

Jonathan Morrill, owner of J.M. Productions, is alleging that Corgan stayed at his apartment in St. Petersburg, Fla. in 1986, at which time Morrill created a video/documentary of Corgan's pre-Pumpkins outfit, the Marked. Morrill claims only two copies of the video were made, a master and a backup, the latter of which he hasn't seen since Corgan's stay in 1986. The suit alleges Corgan "purloined the backup copy of Video Marked without permission or authorization." Video Marked, according to Morrill, was the express and exclusive property of Morrill and J.M. Productions.

In conjunction with the Smashing Pumpkins' 1994 B-sides compilation Pisces Iscariot, a video compilation, Vieuphoria was also released, unbeknownst to Morrill. Later, in 1996, Morrill claims to have approached Corgan about the possibility of releasing Video Marked and Corgan replied by stating "he did not wish for the old materials to be released and cited audio quality as a particular reason."

In 1999, Morrill, upon realizing Vieuphoria had been commercially released, allegedly discovered that it contained a substantial amount of work lifted directly from Video Marked uncredited to him or his production company. The suit reads, in part, "Vieuphoria is sold, distributed, and advertised, in part, based on exclusive materials lifted from Video Marked and Vieuphoria expressly refers to 'super secret super special extra stuff shot by the band'" which refers to Video Marked.

Morrill is suing Corgan, the Smashing Pumpkins, Virgin Records America, and Modivational Films for breach of contract, breach of confidence, fraud and deceit, negligent misrepresentation, declaratory relief, constructive trust, and injunctive relief.