Michael Jackson may not be around to tour in support of his new posthumous album, Xscape, but the annual Billboard Music Awards will still feature a performance from the late King of Pop. A Michael Jackson hologram will take the stage at Sunday night's event.
According to the Los Angeles Times, plans for the awards ceremony include the hologram image of Jackson performing the new Xscape track "Slave to the Rhythm." Sources affiliated with the show said the event will be a "history-making performance" and that the "technology is so spectacular and groundbreaking."
Although the show's producers had tried to keep a lid on their plans, news of the Jackson hologram emerged as the result of a lawsuit filed by two tech companies in an attempt to block the performance. Hologram USA Inc. (which acquired the rights to the patents from Digital Domain, creator of the Tupac Shakur hologram at Coachella 2012) and Musion Das Hologram Ltd. filed the suit on Thursday, claiming that their product was being used without permission by a competitor to create the image of Michael Jackson. The lawsuit was rejected by the judge, who said that there wasn't enough evidence to show that the Billboard Awards' plan would violate patents, nor was there sufficient evidence that their patent had been used to create the hologram.
The 2014 Billboard Music Awards will air on Sunday, May 18th at 8 p.m. on ABC.
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