A Manhattan judge has thrown out a lawsuit by Duke Ellington’s grandson, Paul Ellington, accusing EMI Music Inc. affiliates of unfairly depriving him of royalties from overseas sales of his grandfather’s records.

Justice Bernard J. Fried (See Profile) ruled in Ellington v. EMI Music, 651558/10, that Mr. Ellington was trying to rewrite the terms of a 1961 contract between Duke Ellington and Mills Music, a company that was later acquired by EMI.