The Marley Family Will Not License Bob Marley’s Music for Weinstein Company’s Biopic Release
KINGSTON, Jamaica – The family of Bob Marley have had a long-standing policy not to license his music for any film or television production whereby there is an actor portraying Bob Marley.
Due to this policy, the family will not issue, and have not issued, any licenses for his music to be included in any such film. There have been
several requests over the years from different companies and individuals to license Bob Marley music for different projects and all of them have been declined, including the proposed Weinstein production of Rita Marley’s book ‘No woman no cry.’
“When I sold the film rights to my book the contract did not include any rights to use my husband’s music,” states Rita Marley. “Though I am the head of the Marley family each decision is made democratically amongst all of us, I requested an exception be made for my book to be turned into a movie but that request was declined.”
Tuff Gong Pictures, owned by the Family entered into a co-production agreement with Steve Bing’s Shangri La to produce a Martin Scorsese directed documentary of the legendary Bob Marley and they have agreed to license his music.
“All our efforts and support are currently directed towards the documentary that we are working on with Shangri La, directed by Martin
Scorsese. We believe that this project is the best way to represent our father’s life from his perspective and any other film project pertaining to our father will be empty without his music to support it,” said Ziggy Marley.
