They demanded that a link to an unreleased love song by the tragic pop star, which his grieving boyfriend had posted online, should be taken down.
Fadi Fawaz, 43, sparked calls for the unpublished This Kind of Love ballad to be officially released when he shared it on social media.
But the hairstylist was forced to take down the link after a top lawyer employed by the singer’s estate called the upload ‘exploitation’.
The legal skirmish took place as Michael’s closest advisors continued to work furiously behind the scenes to get his affairs in order.
His long-term PR guru, lawyer and one of his oldest friends are trying to take stock of the singer’s huge wealth and musical legacy.
They are waiting for a post mortem examination today to shed light on how he died at his Oxfordshire mansion on Christmas Day.
Mr Fawaz posted a link to This Kind of Love with the words ‘My Baby’ on Twitter within hours of discovering his long-term partner’s body.
The song includes the tragic line: ‘Now everyone has to get over I know, but this empty house seems to get colder and colder.’ More than 100,000 people have listened to the song – understood to have been produced with Elton John in the early 1990s – on YouTube and similar sites.
But the move enraged those responsible for Michael’s estate, who served a ‘takedown’ notice on the online video giant. In a letter, senior lawyer John Reid, of Russells Solicitors, said Michael’s estate was concerned at the ‘exploitation’ of the song. ‘This song is unreleased … our client did not wish, and his estate do not wish, this song to be publicly available,’ he wrote. ‘The exploitation of this song, including the posting of hyperlinks to unauthorised reproductions of the song, is an infringement of our client’s rights.’
Mr Fawaz then posted another message, apparently aimed at the lawyers. In it he wrote: ‘The song I posted was found online they (sic) are many versions of it, please do your research if * think you r professional in what * do.’ This Kind of Love is from Michael’s unreleased album Trojan Souls, due out in 1993 but never finished, reportedly due to another legal tussle.