ABSTRACT
In 2013 thirty-four Michael Jackson fans sued the King of Pop’s doctor, Conrad Murray, for “emotional damages” derived from the singer’s death. Satisfied that five of the plaintiffs had indeed suffered, a court in Orleans awarded “symbolic damages” of one euro each in February 2014 (Guardian 2014). Beyond its novelty value, the ruling says much about popular music’s trajectories in contemporary cultures. It reinforces how both the performer and their music speak to and for fans, underlining the deeply subjective modes of our choices and connections. Yet it also says something, perhaps, about the extent to which music fans have adopted the juridical and administrative discourses of industry, that our affective interactions with the star and their music are never far away from being transposed into their base commodity and legal forms (especially if threatened).
