OK, I don't know the full story, but here's an excerpt from an old news article that suggests every article has two sides. If you know more about the Burning Heart side of the story, let us know...

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In a brief message posted on the band's website www.thehives.com, guitarist Nicholaus Arson insisted "BHR/Epitaph did not have the rights to our third album."

Arson also rubbished a BNR claim that the label had been taken completely by surprise by the band's announcement, insisting problems had existed between band and label for some time. "We have for some time now had extremely serious issues with the BHR/Epitaph label and as a consequence we recently decided not to continue with the label we have been working with for seven years," he said.

He added: "BHR/Epitaph has all along been aware of the seriousness of these matters so that we eventually left them is not a shock to anyone."

He closed by saying: "We did this simply to control our own destiny and regain the control over our work we once enjoyed with Burning Heart Records. This had to be done.'

If there was no verbal agreement then there's really no case.

Besides, I imagine BHR benefitted quite nicely from the huge copies of the first two LPs they shifted in the wake of the band selling lots of copies of that compilation on Poptones.

(Also, don't forget it was Poptones that broke them here - were their albums even available here before YNFB came out?)