AceShowbiz - Lawyers for Prince's estate are asking a judge to deny a request from his heirs to pull out of an album deal with bosses at Jay-Z's Tidal streaming service.

Estate officials for Prince reached an agreement with Tidal executives last month to release a posthumous new album featuring unreleased music from the late singer's vault. The project had been due to be released in 2019 and made available exclusively to Tidal users 14 days before its launch on other platforms.

Earlier this week, ends June 22, an attorney for Sharon, Norrine, and John Nelson asked a judge to reconsider the order granting the music rights to Tidal chiefs, because they have been accused of inflating streaming figures for albums by Kanye West and Beyonce.

Tidal executives have denied the allegations, made by editors at Norway's Dagens Naeringsliv (DN) newspaper, but Prince's heirs don't want his estate to be part of any legal proceedings over the matter.

However, a lawyer for the estate is now calling their objections "meritless" and asking that their request be denied.

"The Nelsons fail to raise any issue that merits reconsideration," attorney Lora M. Friedemann writes. "Their request is based on accusations about Tidal reported in one newspaper article in Norway over six weeks ago...".

"Unproven media reports do not constitute an 'intervening legal development,' or demonstrate that the Court's Order was 'palpably wrong in some respect'," she continues. "Moreover, the Nelsons fail to explain how unsubstantiated media reports about Tidal bear in any respect on the settlement, and they do not... The Nelsons' request is meritless and should be denied'.