Lawyers for Amaru Entertainment and Afeni Shakur filed for an injunction against Death Row Records to prohibit the inclusion of Tupac Shakur's unreleased tracks, compositions or sound recordings in the auction of Death Row Records. The adversary complaint was filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles on July 20, 2007.
The injunction sought to restrain the sale of certain assets belonging to the Tupac Estate which are being touted as part of the Death Row Records bankruptcy assets. With closed bidding ending Friday, July 20, 2007 lawyers for the Tupac Estate sought full disclosure by the Bankruptcy Trustee's counsel that the unreleased master recordings in question were not part of the sale.
"The 1997 Death Row Agreement provided that all unreleased songs physically housed in the data vaults at Death Row Records, would become the rightful property of the Tupac Shakur Estate," said Donald N. David, General Counsel for Amaru Entertainment and shareholder at Akerman Senterfitt LLP. "Conversely, the Estate was under the assumption that it was in possession of all master recordings containing Tupac as a featured artist or side artist, as represented by Death Row. However, upon assessing the Debtor's bankruptcy assets, it was revealed that an album's worth of unreleased Tupac material was being advertised to potential buyers as the jewel in the crown of the Death Row assets, which is in direct violation of the terms of the 1997 settlement with Death Row."
At the time of his death, Tupac had recorded approximately 152 unreleased songs, which remained in the vaults of Death Row Records. By April of 2006, Death Row Records head Marion "Suge" Knight sought bankruptcy protection for himself and the record company, claiming debts in excess of $100 million dollars.