Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Universal Music Eminem Royalty Lawsuit
The United States Supreme Court has refused to consider Universal Music's appeal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court ruling that said that F.B.T. Productions and Eminem were entitled to a 50 -5- split with UMG for tracks liscened to iTunes and other digital distributors. Barring new legal maneuvering, the payout and implications for both record labels and artists signed to pre-iTunes record deals are enormous.
Under an agreement with UMG, FBT was to receive royalties of 12 -2% on the adjusted retail price of all full records sold and 50 percent on licensed master recordings. Virtually all downloads are "sold" as licences rather than as a standard purchase.
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Can you put this into plain English please?
If Universal doesn’t find a way to appeal by taking a new legal tactic, artists with older contracts will ne owed a lot of money.
The only higher authority than the Supreme Court is GOD. No appeals left…It’s over…game, set, match!!
The irony is that Enimen has his own record company and he will have to pay these FBT guys. Universal does not own Eminem. It’s Dr. Dre/Eminem.
Andrew… how is it you could post such a moronic comment with an equally authoritative tone while you’re so far off base, it’s ridiculous. FBT and Marshall co-produced all his early work and share in the royalties they are claiming. None of the early albums were released on Eminem’s label and Eminem is not a party to the suit, though he will now be among its beneficieries. This is wholly about how royalty points are interpreted…that digital downloads shall be considered under the ‘masters licensed’ provision as opposed to merely ‘records sold’, and the resultant implications are huge for the recording industry. Artists will be paid generally 3 to 5 times what they otherwise have been receiving (this is dependant on whatever their original contracts called for).
Oh, more to the point, they also co-share publishing on the recordings at issue.
basically what it’s saying is, universal music only wants to share 2-12% of the profits made from digital sales to eminem and fbt productions based on a legality, not 50%, which the courts ordered. that’s why they appealed.