It's Perry Mason-meets-Billy Joel in this account of the most famous lawsuits in rock history. "They Fought the Law" traces the difficulties rockers have faced dealing with bad contracts, personnel problems, litigious fans, and crooked managers and accountants. While it’s the music that counts, the music-makers are often robbed of their rightful share of the profits that the music creates—and may spend decades sorting out ill-considered contracts signed in the heat of their early careers. This book pulls back the veil on the often shady business practices that characterize the rock world—and shows how some courageous artists have fought the system and won.

The Beatles were also hugely successful—and they also suffered from poor business dealings that left their songs, recordings, and images in the hands of less-than-scrupulous owners. The group’s legacy was a decade of lawsuits over whether their record label—Capitol Records—had illegally deprived them of millions of dollars in royalties. The settlement of this case enabled the Beatles to renew their creative partnership in the widely successful "Anthology" recordings and TV specials.