American Idol Winner Taylor Hicks Sues To Prevent Sale Of Old Songs

American Idol winner Taylor Hicks doesn't want people hearing songs that he wrote and recorded nine years ago, and he's filed a lawsuit against a producer who has posted them on iTunes.

Hicks wrote and recorded "Son Of A Carpenter," "In Your Time" and "The Fall" in 1997. According to his suit, Nashville-based producer William Smith released the songs on iTunes and profited from them without having any legal ownership claim to them.

The suit, filed by the singer's lawyers on Tuesday in Alabama's U.S. District Court, seeks compensatory and punitive damages of more than $75,000 U.S. and ownership of the allegedly illegally-released songs. Hicks is looking to recover some of the money that Smith earned from the downloads as well as all related legal expenses.

Smith contacted Hicks' attorneys to tell them of his plan to release the tracks, and they responded by seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent him from selling them. The suit claims that Smith made no effort to remove the songs from the iTunes music store. The two sides entered an undisclosed settlement last week, but then Smith once again notified Hicks' counsel that he would again be making the three songs available online.

The suit was filed to spare Hicks from "suffering irreparable financial harm and harm to his reputation in the entertainment industry." The crooner is seeking injunctions against Smith and claims that he breached their settlement through his "fallacious pursuit to release songs in which [he has] no rights or ownership."

Hicks lawyer Michael Douglas told MTV News that the tracks that Smith has been selling appeared on an album titled In Your Time that his client released in 1997. Therefore, he said, the songs were copyrighted and protected.

"We feel we have a strong case and it's just an unfortunate situation. We feel we have a strong legal stance in the matter."

Smith told MTV that he recorded the tracks with some session musicians when Hicks auditioned for him in 2001, and that they received no interest from 15 different record labels when they were shopped around.

When asked who owns the recordings, Smith said, "That's what the court is going to have to determine."

Hicks' lawyers filed for, and received, a temporary restraining order to prevent Smith from selling the songs.

Smith told TheSmokingGun.com that he doesn't want to harm Hicks' reputation and that he has turned down five-figure financial offers from various tabloids to discuss the Idol winner's past.

The grey-haired Hicks, 29, signed to Arista Records after winning Idol in May and will release his major label debut on Nov. 14. He received $750,000 from Random House this month to publish a memoir of his life titled Heart Full Of Soul that will be ghostwritten by Rolling Stone writer David Wild. The book is expected to be out next spring.