Reports emerged this morning noting that Ultimate Aaliyah, a posthumous compilation featuring many of the singer’s biggest hits, had appeared without warning on Apple Music and in the iTunes Store.
The arrival of this release was notable because the majority of the R&B icon’s music has been absent from streaming services and iTunes on account of her manager and uncle, Barry Hankerson, refusing to license it.
Tracks like One In a Million, Rock the Boat, and Are You That Somebody all feature on the greatest hits release.
Interestingly, the publisher is listed on iTunes as Craze Productions who, as Complex pointed out, ran into legal trouble with the Aaliyah estate in 2013 for selling Aaliyah’s music digitally without the rights. As Forbes journalist Gary Suarez pointed out via Twitter, court reports show Craze made almost $300,000 from iTunes sales the last time they did this (not including streaming revenue).
Reservoir Media Management who own the rights to Aaliyah’s music won the case against Craze the last time this happened which resulted in the music being taken down. SPIN noted that the lawsuit was on “a list of past offenses for copyright infringement leveled against Craze Productions”.
We have reached out to Craze Digital and Apple Music for comment.
