Jackson goods given green light (Use this Code 5XXXUKRA, and get 5% of all canvas art)

Official Michael Jackson commemorative goods such as calendars and posters could soon hit the shops after a judge approved various merchandising deals.

The LA judge agreed that Jackson’s estate and Apple’s iTunes store could sell songs and videos of Jermaine Jackson’s performance of Smile.

He sang the Charlie Chaplin classic at Michael’s public memorial.

The deals were presented to Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff by the administrators of Jackson’s estate.

The administrators are lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain.

They are due to have another hearing with Judge Beckloff on Monday to ask that other deals be cleared.

They include a film featuring the singer’s final rehearsals and preparations for a series of comeback concerts in London.

Columbia Pictures has agreed to pay $60m (£36m) for the rights to the footage but the deal must be approved by Monday.

Private Trust

The judge is also considering a deal from merchandiser Bravo for worldwide distribution rights to several Jackson-themed products.

These include trading cards, lighters, stuffed animals that play Jackson songs, and tattoos for online games.

Jackson was heavily in debt when he died. He is reported to have owed between $300m (£180m) and $500m (£300m).

Jackson’s assets are being placed into a private trust. His three children and his mother, who is also the children’s guardian, are expected to receive 80% of the singer’s estate. The rest will go to unnamed charities.

Jackson’s will said the singer’s estate consisted almost entirely of “non-cash, non-liquid assets, including primarily an interest in a catalogue of music royalty rights which is currently being administered by Sony ATV, and the interests of various entities”.

This refers to the singer’s share of the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalogue, which includes rights to the songs of The Beatles.

Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home on 25 June at the age of 50.

Speculation continues about the possible role prescription drugs played in Jackson’s death.

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Warhol’s Jackson goes to auction (Use this Code 5XXXUKRA, and get 5% of all canvas art)

A portrait by Andy Warhol of the late singer Michael Jackson is set to be auctioned in New York.

The 1984 portrait will be on show ahead of the sale at London’s British Music Experience, inside the O2 Arena, where Jackson had been due to perform.

“This Andy Warhol portrait brings together the uncontested King of Pop Art with the uncontested King of Pop,” said Janet Lehr, acting for the seller.

Warhol’s painting of actress Liz Taylor, fetched $23.7m (£14m) in 2007.

In the same year, the 1963 painting Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) – depicting an overturned car on fire – sold for $71.7m (£42.8m), a record for a Warhol piece.

“The portrait was painted at the height of their careers and is a celebration of two of the great talents in global cultural history,” said Ms Lehr, of the Jackson artwork.

American artist Warhol was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement, and he experimented by creating artworks from mass-produced images from American popular culture.

He died in 1987, following a gall bladder operation.

Autopsy results

The British Music Experience will be the only European venue to host the 1984 portrait ahead of the auction.

Earlier this week it was announced that details of Michael Jackson’s autopsy results would be announced imminently.

Speculation continues about the possible role prescription drugs played in the singer’s death.

The singer suffered a cardiac arrest at his rented home in Los Angeles on 25 June, at the age of 50.

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Jackson’s doctor is probe target

Michael Jackson’s personal doctor has been identified as the target of a manslaughter investigation into the singer’s death, US court papers say.

Dr Conrad Murray’s medical clinic in Houston, Texas, and another site rented by him were searched on Wednesday.

Police have said previously that Dr Murray is not a suspect but the search warrant allowed the authorities to seek evidence of manslaughter.

The doctor was at Jackson’s mansion and tried to revive him before he died.

Dr Murray has already been interviewed twice by police, who had asked for medical records in addition to those already provided.

He has not been arrested or formally charged.

Unwelcome attention

According to the warrant, approved by a Houston judge and filed in Harris County District Court, authorities were looking for “items constituting evidence of the offence of manslaughter that tend to show that Dr Conrad Murray committed the said criminal offence”.

Items seized during the searches included 27 tablets of the weight loss drug phentermine, a tablet of the muscle relaxant clonazepam, two hard drives, notices from the Internal Revenue Service and a controlled substance registration.

Speaking a few days after Jackson’s death, Dr Murray’s lawyer, Edward Chernoff, denied his client administered painkilling drugs that could have contributed to the singer’s death.

But he said that, because of his closeness to Jackson at his death, the doctor had received unwelcome attention from people angry at the singer’s demise.

Mr Chernoff was present at Wednesday’s searches.

“I do not know what they are looking for and I can’t possibly tell you how anything they took in any way connects with the death of Michael Jackson,” he was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying.

The BBC’s Peter Bowes in Los Angeles, where Jackson died, says it is now up to public prosecutors to sift through the considerable amount of evidence and decide whether to charge Dr Murray.

An official determination of what killed Jackson will not be made until after a toxicology report, which is expected to be completed next week.

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