Court Rules In Favour Of Prince's Estate, 'Deliverance' EP Release Axed

Prince's Deliverance EP was announced just this week but thanks to a court ruling, the material may never see the light of day. 

According to TMZ, a federal judge has ruled in favour of the music icon's estate, who almost immediately hit producer George Ian Boxill with a lawsuit for attempting to release the six previously-unheard tracks without authorisation. 

The judge reportedly granted the estate's request for a restraining order against Boxill, who ruled that the sound engineer has no right to distribute the songs following a confidentiality agreement he signed in 2006 when recording with Prince. 

Boxill has since been ordered to return all of the recorded tracks to Prince's estate.

TMZ have reported that the restraining order will expire on 3 May, though there will be another hearing before that date.

Deliverance, initially due for release tomorrow in honour of the one year anniversary of Prince's death, has since been pulled from Apple Music and iTunes, despite reaching #1 on Apple Music's pre-order chart.

The millions of people who did pre-order Deliverance on iTunes received an immediate download of one song before the EP was pulled altogether.