5 million big ones is what Al Yankovic will sue Sony for under payment of digital royalties. The question is, "Can Sony pay straight royalties for download sales, rather than the agreed upon 50 percent of revenues as per a standard licensing deal? "
Sneaky, sneaky, Sony. This is not the first time one of the big four record labels have been caught out cheating artists of their due for digital royalties. Eminen sued Universal Music Group due to the way in which they calculated digital royalties, and in a precedent that still stands the court found that digital music should be treated as a license and as such be worth 50% to the artist instead of the 12% an artist would usually make on a "sale".
As the precedent stands, any artist who had a contract pre-dating the boom in digital sales, (contracts for newer artists have been cleverly built to cope) being jipped digital royalties by record companies not adhering to contractual obligations of paying the artist 50% for licensing deals could potentially sue for the difference and open up a can of worms no record label would want to deal with.
Weird Al Yankovic is currently seeking a judgment against Sony requiring the payment of 50 percent of net receipts for his download and ringtone licenses.
