In another wrinkle, the singer, back in 1999, mortgaged the royalties to most of his songs in a so-called Bowie Bond, named for the singer David Bowie, who was the first to benefit from one. The deal gave Brown $26 million up front, while the purchaser, TIAA-CREF, the financial-services company best known for managing teachers’ pensions, got royalties to hits like “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.” Today, while Brown’s songbook generates roughly $5 million a year (putting him ahead of James Dean and Bob Marley on Forbes’ list of top-earning dead celebrities), all of the revenue goes to TIAA-CREF. Depending on album sales and the success of other moneymakers like ring tones and single downloads, it could be another five to 10 years before the $15 million balance is paid off, says David Pullman, the financier who structured the bond.

In the meantime, the legal mess has scared off other potential business partners. Imagine Entertainment, the production company behind A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code, paid $1 million over the course of a decade for options to make a James Brown bio­pic. It was widely reported that di­rector Spike Lee co-wrote and circulated a script. But last summer, Imagine let its options lapse. “We’re going to wait until the family resolves its issues before we decide what we’re going to do,” says company president Michael Rosenberg.

Similarly, a reality-TV show, Who Will Be the Next Godfather of Soul? was in the works but has been dropped. There were also discussions with talent agency William Morris to use Brown’s name, image, and likeness in exchange for “tens of millions of dollars over the next several years,” says Toby Byron, a television producer who worked with the estate. Such deals would require approval of the court-appointed overseers, but the hearings in South Carolina have focused not on business opportunities but on alleged mismanagement of Brown’s affairs. The court-appointed trustees “are so busy with all the litigation, they don’t have time” to pursue other business, says Louis Levenson, the lawyer who is representing five of the six children named in Brown’s will.

Brown’s grandson Forlando Brown, a 22-year-old college senior, hasn’t made much headway with his family either. Having teamed up with Atlanta consultant Terry Cox, Forlando has visions of creating everything from a signature James Brown golf course to a line of children’s books. He has left it to Cox, a former vice president of the restaurant chain Fuddruckers, to offer $80 million to $100 million to buy Brown’s assets and rights to his name and works. Cox says the trustees have not responded to his overtures.

The only possible upside to the continued family battles is keeping Brown’s name in the headlines and potentially propping up his music sales. Already, since Brown’s death on Christmas Day, 2006, sales of his albums have more than doubled, to 376,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. “The more controversy, the better,” says Pullman. “But that doesn’t mean this is maximizing assets.”