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Universal Music sued over digital royalties

12 August 2008 13:33 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 6 comments

Group members of the The Allman Brothers Band have sued Universal Music for $10 million USD, claiming they have not received the correct amount of royalties for CD sales and digital downloads from services such as iTunes or Amazon MP3.

The lawsuit is seeking payments for sales of the band's songs recorded while it was on its first label, Capricorn Records, from 1969 to 1980. During that time the band scored its biggest hits, "Jessica," "Ramblin' Man" and "Midnight Rider."

The lawsuit claims that UMG "refuses to pay Plaintiffs at the correct royalty rate for its digital exploitation of the Capricorn Masters." The suit wants royalties for CD sales, digital downloads and ringtone downloads.

The band cites an agreement dated back to 1985 which was signed between them and Polygram, which was later bought by Universal. The agreement states that the band will receive half of profits "from the sale of records by third parties." iTunes is certainly included, although obviously not named in the original deal.

UMG has showed "wanton disregard" for the agreement however and has only paid out a small fraction of what the band is supposed to receive.

"UMG incurs practically no expenses or risks in connection with the Masters, particularly with respect to licensing other companies such as Apple to create and distribute digital downloads ... yet UMG reaps millions of dollars every year from such exploitation," the lawsuit reads.

Permalink to this article | Topics: Lawsuits & Legislation MP3 & Digital Audio Online music services

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jony218 (Senior Member) 12 August 2008 15:00
The Allman brothers band should know that they cannot go up against "the man" (aka the record companys) and win. When the record companies release there "sales data" in court it's going to say that they made "zero" profit on the sale of Allman brothers songs. The little guy gets it in the end. It's always been that way, it will always be that way. The only way for the Allman brothers to make some cash is to go back on "tour" and sell some t-shirts. [ + quote]
lynchGOP (Inactive) 12 August 2008 15:21
*Originally posted by jony218:* The Allman brothers band should know that they cannot go up against "the man" (aka the record companys) and win. When the record companies release there "sales data" in court it's going to say that they made "zero" profit on the sale of Allman brothers songs. The little guy gets it in the end. It's always been that way, it will always be that way. The only way for the Allman brothers to make some cash is to go back on "tour" and sell some t-shirts. You shut the 'F' up with your pussy conformist ways! You fight the good fight to teach a lesson, get heard and frankly..........to avoid being people like yourself. If everyone followed your guidelines then we'd all be getting bent over day in and day out. WIMP!! [ + quote]
ikari (Newbie) 12 August 2008 16:07
*Quote:* *Originally posted by jony218:* The Allman brothers band should know that they cannot go up against "the man" (aka the record companys) and win. When the record companies release there "sales data" in court it's going to say that they made "zero" profit on the sale of Allman brothers songs. The little guy gets it in the end. It's always been that way, it will always be that way. The only way for the Allman brothers to make some cash is to go back on "tour" and sell some t-shirts. You shut the 'F' up with your pussy conformist ways! You fight the good fight to teach a lesson, get heard and frankly..........to avoid being people like yourself. If everyone followed your guidelines then we'd all be getting bent over day in and day out. WIMP!! Lol...Dude, you have been very angry the last few weeks. I like happy/funny lynch better. :-) I think Jony was trying to point out that the record company is in it for themselves and not for the artists. Most likely the UMG is going to do everything they can to prove they don't owe the band a thing. Basically a waste of money and time for nothing when they could be on tour making cash off tickets and merchandise. So Jony makes a good point. However, on the same token, I think you are right too. More bands need to come forward and do the samething because you, me, and pretty much everyone else on this site know that this is happening to more than just this band. [ + quote]
Blackjax (Member) 12 August 2008 23:57
AH but this is just the trickle before the flood. More and more artists are growing tired of the reaming they are taking from the labels. Soon I think the trend is going to catch on with the artists. After becoming successful they will either start their own labels OR ink their own deals for distribution. Time marches on and not even the mighty mafiaa can stop what will eventually happen. Of course this is just an opinion and we all know about opinions and uh... uh... brown eyes. [ + quote]
ALIS123 (Junior Member) 13 August 2008 4:20
Thats nice, multimillion dollar business taking money from artists, how about telling us something we dont know allready. And people say pirates are taking artists money right out of their pocket. Pirating is just an excuse for record industries to say theres no profit so they dont have to pay the artists. [ + quote]
canuckerz (Senior Member) 13 August 2008 17:59
*Quote:* *Originally posted by jony218:* The Allman brothers band should know that they cannot go up against "the man" (aka the record companys) and win. When the record companies release there "sales data" in court it's going to say that they made "zero" profit on the sale of Allman brothers songs. The little guy gets it in the end. It's always been that way, it will always be that way. The only way for the Allman brothers to make some cash is to go back on "tour" and sell some t-shirts. You shut the 'F' up with your pussy conformist ways! You fight the good fight to teach a lesson, get heard and frankly..........to avoid being people like yourself. If everyone followed your guidelines then we'd all be getting bent over day in and day out. WIMP!! A little over the top but hes right, if no one fights for whats right just because they think they can't win then society would be on an ever tightening leash. [ + quote]