John Lydon loses his court case against former bandmates — the Sex Pistols songs can be used in forthcoming TV series

We’ve been following the production of the Danny Boyle series Pistol, based on the guitarist Steve Jones’s autobiography Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol. The series was always likely to draw criticism from former member John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) though the biography itself is (in our view) generally positive towards Lydon.

As reported by the BBC, the six-part series, which began filming earlier this year, Lydon’s lawyer claimed:

…would portray the singer in “a hostile and unflattering light”.

If you read the BBC report, it mentions various legal principles and also mentions pre-existing assignment of rights to various organisations. From a lay perspective (and we imagine Danny Boyle would have considered this in advance) the decision “John Lydon loses” was always possible (if not likely) and has resulted in plenty of publicity for all concerned. In his written judgement, handed down remotely on Monday, Mr Justice Mann noted that:

“Relationships between band members have always been strained, even going back to the days when the band was performing.