So we have nothing but respect for the family and former manager of Ray Charles, who managed to remain peaceful and amicable until he was long-dead, completely cold and probably quite rotten, and then they started having bitter, distasteful fights about his possessions.

Ray Charles’ 12 children have accused manager Joe Adams of tarnishing their father’s memory by releasing two Ray Charles albums posthumously that Ray would have never approved. We’re not so sure about that – Ray Charles Sings The Hits Of Emma Bunton and Ray Charles Mumbles To Himself About His Slippers have always been long-time favourites of ours.

When Ray Charles died, he went out with a bang. Not literally, of course – people didn’t drag Ray Charles onto a beach, stuff him full of dynamite and explode him like a whale or anything – but he made sure he went out at the height of his powers.

The last album Ray Charles made, Genius Loves Company, won eight Grammys and the film about his life that was made as he was dying, Ray, won two Oscars. So between that – and the money that Ray Charles accumulated in the 53 years since his first recording, you’d think that everyone would be happy with their inheritance.

Not a chance. The 12 children that Ray Charles fathered by nine women have all got the hump with Ray Charles’ manager Joe Adams. And that’s either because Joe Adams has systematically mismanaged Ray Charles’ estate since his death in 2004 or because they’re pissed off that Ray didn’t leave them a bunch more money in his will and they’re lashing out. Who knows? Either way, as The Associated Press reports, now the FBI is getting involved and all sorts:

Ray Charles’ children are accusing his longtime manager of mismanaging his estate and trusts and tarnishing his legacy by releasing two posthumous CDs the late singer never would have approved, according to a published report. In allegations outlined Sunday in the Los Angeles Times, several of Charles’ 12 children accused Joe Adams of holding too much power over Ray Charles Enterprises and the Ray Charles Foundation and excluding them from business dealings. They’re seeking a formal investigation and audit looking into their father’s estate, trusts and foundation for possible wrongdoing.

According to these allegations, Ray Charles’ kids all received $500,000 each in his will, along with a woolly-worded hint about possibly getting more “down the line.” Meanwhile Joe Adams – who’d been Ray Charles’ manager since 1961 – didn’t receive anything in the will, but he stayed in charge of all the business rights.

What this scrap boils down to, essentially, is the Ray Charles’ image rights. No mention of it was made in the will and the children are trying to gain control over it. Should they win, this row will disappear instantly and everything will go back to normal.

OK, that’s a lie – what we expect will actually happen is there’ll be a bunch of new lawsuits between the various children about how Ray Charles’ image gets used. For instance, one of them will probably want to remaster his back catalogue for iTunes, another will want to make a Ray Charles museum complete with lucrative giftshop, another will want to make a Hammer Man-style Saturday morning cartoon about Ray Charles’ adventures fighting crime and another will want to sell out old Ray Charles songs for the remix album Ray Charles Says: Poop Poop! All Aboard The Vengaboys Express!

All of which we’d be OK with, incidentally. Except the museum one. Ugh.

Read more:

Ray Charles’ children, ex-manager battle – AP

But you wouldn't know it to drive around America gawking out of your car window instead of concentrating on the road ahead of you. Because if you've been doing that, the moments directly before your gruesome death were probably spent looking at billboards of Woody Allen appearing to endorse American Apparel.

However, Woody Allen hasn't been endorsing American Apparel at all, which is why he's launched a $10 million lawsuit against the company. And he has every right to, because the billboards don't accurately representing him as an artist. No, they'd need to be 500% shitter and have Ewan McGregor in them to do that.

It's a marvel that Woody Allen's image hasn't been used in adverts for clothing before. After all, nothing sells threads to the cool kids like perpetually dour 72-year-old Jewish men who marry girls they've raised as their own daughter since the age of eight. Nothing.

So it was only a matter of time before some clever young hotshot decided that the best marketing strategy around involved dressing Woody Allen up in a fake beard, making him look even more Jewish than he already is and plastering him all over billboards in New York and Los Angeles.

And the company that hotshot worked for was American Apparel – you know, the company that puts scantily-clad adverts featuring androgynous models onto websites in the hope that people will a) think that it's porn, b) click the advert to be taken to the porn site, c) not be instantly angered when they find out that the website sells T-shirts and not porn and d) be so impressed by the produce that they end up buying some spandex one-pieces. You know American Apparel, right?

Well, long story short, American Apparel didn't bother asking Woody Allen if it could use his image on the billboard adverts and now Woody Allen is summoning up all the fury his puny under-developed body can muster to sue American Apparel back where it came from. Reuters reports:

Woody Allen on Monday sued American Apparel Inc, claiming the U.S. clothing company used his image in advertising on billboards and the Internet without his consent… Allen, an Oscar-winning U.S. director known for his work in films such as "Annie Hall" and "Crimes and Misdemeanors," said in the suit he was neither contacted by the company, nor compensated for the use of his image. "Allen does not engage in the commercial endorsement of products or services in the United States," according to the lawsuit.

It seems as if American Apparel hadn't thought to compensate Woody Allen at all for using his image in the billboard adverts. That was a big mistake for the company to make, because Woody Allen needs all the money he can get. God knows it's hard enough for him to finance his movies in his own country as it is. Perhaps the American Apparel lawsuit money will be enough for him to go back to New York and stop fouling up London all the time. If that's the case, we can only pray that he wins.

And maybe Woody Allen can even find inspiration in this lawsuit. It does have all the ingredients of a good movie after all, so all Woody Allen needs to do is remove all of those ingredients, replace them with several self-indulgent scenes of Scarlett Johansson looking off into the middle-distance, change the story completely until it's rubbish, dull, vastly unpopular, not as deep or as clever as it thinks it is and a waste of everyone's money and – bingo – there's his new movie.

Read more:

Woody Allen sues American Apparel over ads – Reuters