Adding to the recent wave of artists suing record companies over online royalties, "Weird Al" Yankovic has sued Sony Music Entertainment, saying he is owed more than $5 million. In the suit, filed Friday at United States District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Yankovic says the company underpaid him for videos and other expenses, and also incorrectly counted downloads of his music as "sales" rather than as "licenses," which pay a higher royalty rate.
He also asks for money from industry settlements with Napster, Kazaa, Grokster and other file-sharing services, and says he is owed $2.5 million from Sony's share of the sale of YouTube in 2006. Sony, Universal and the Warner Music Group had owned a stake in YouTube, and when that company was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, the labels made a reported $50 million.
Sony, which declined to comment on Mr. Yankovic's case, last month offered an $8 million settlement with musicians in a class-action lawsuit over digital royalties.
Songwriter Royalties Are Up in Britain: Thanks to a growth in digital music sales and the popularity of British artists overseas, songwriters and publishers there enjoyed a slight gain in royalties last year. PRS for Music, a collecting agency, had just over $1 billion in revenue, up 3.2 percent from 2010, the group announced. (After expenses, the agency distributed $893 million to its members.) Publishing royalties from record sales fell 13.3 percent, but money from online sales jumped 45.3 percent, to $62 million, and PRS's international collections grew 10.6 percent, to $301 million.
An App Festival Returns: The iHeartRadio Music Festival, a two-day event in Las Vegas to promote Clear Channel Communications' radio app, will return for a second year on Sept. 21 and 22 at the MGM Grand, the company announced. Last year's inaugural festival featured Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Black Eyed Peas and Kelly Clarkson, among others.
Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
No comments:
Post a Comment