Oh its all the rage so c'mon y'all lets sue our label. The beef here is that artists are not making the royalties they should with the deluge of digital. There was a time when royalities were based upon physical sales of songs and LPs.
Now in an era when a tangilble CD is a rarity, artists are feeling ripped off. Eminem was successful with Nashville attorney Richard Busch, a partner with King & Ballow … and now Pete wants cash too
Record companies claim albums cost a lot to produce and ship, and have taken a bigger cut of royalties to offset the expenses. Yet, many times, record companies claim the same royalty split for digital sales. Artists are now claiming the royalty split should be 50/50 – the same as if their music was licensed to movies or television so the battle begins.
UMG issued a check to the artist for $212,000. The lawsuit reportedly contends that UMG hoped Frampton would deposit it “thereby potentially relieving UMG Recordings of further liability.” The lawsuit is demanding $500,000 in withheld music royalties.
I suppose this will only intensify as more artists jump aboard the royalty train.