A judge ruling on a copyright dispute about rock band the Fall’s lyrics has admitted that the words were “hard to hear” due to frontman Mark E Smith’s vocal style.

Recorder Amanda Michaels made the remark after listening to three versions of one of the Manchester band’s songs, in a court case in which Smith’s publisher Minder Music Ltd, former bandmate Julia Adamson and producer Steven Sharples were contesting ownership of the 1999 track Touch Sensitive.

The Fall’s Touch Sensitive.

The singer and Adamson said it was a development of an earlier song of the same name, which they co-wrote and performed on the John Peel Show in 1998.

But Sharples said the album version was a rewrite and that he, as a co-writer of both new lyrics and music, was entitled to a one-third share of the royalties.

It led to the judge being handed three versions of the song – the radio version, a live performance and the album recording – to listen to at London’s high court.

She was also given copies of the lyrics of the different versions, as transcribed by Sharples, to back his claim that he had contributed to them.

Giving judgment, she said: “Mr Smith delivers the lyrics in a manner which at some points makes it hard to hear the words.” But she agreed with Adamson and Smith’s publisher that Sharples had had similar trouble transcribing the words.

His transcripts did not seem completely accurate, she said. “I accept the contention that the line is not ‘And a Star Wars police vehicle Paul’s off’, but ... the more comprehensible ‘And a Star Wars police vehicle pulls up’,” she added.

The judge found that Sharples’ claim to have helped write the lyrics was “not reliable” and that it was more likely that Smith was the sole writer. However, she said string passages added by Sharples were a “small but significant contribution” to authorship of the song.

She said she would have ruled he had a 20% stake in the music, but because of an earlier agreement, he would get a third share of the whole track.

Adamson had in 2013 signed an agreement under which she gave Sharples half of the two-thirds share which she had claimed at the time. The judge refused to rule that that agreement should be set aside.

The decision means royalties will be split three ways between Sharples, Adamson and Minder Music, to which Smith had assigned his publishing rights.