A royalties dispute between Sting and his former bandmates in The Police is in court this week, with legal reps for Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland revealing that their clients want to expand their claims against the band’s frontman.
If the court agrees to accept the expanded lawsuit, the total amount of unpaid royalties being pursued by Summers and Copeland against Sting, real name Gordon Sumner, could end up being “considerably more” than the previously stated £8 million.
A two-day preliminary hearing on the dispute began yesterday in London's High Court. The musicians themselves were not in attendance, but legal reps for both sides provided an update on the legal battle.
That included the revelation that Sting has already paid his former bandmates an extra £647,000 since the start of these legal proceedings relating to a “historic underpayment”. But the two musicians insist they are due considerably more than that.
This falling out centres on a 1970s agreement in which Sting committed to share with his bandmates 15% of the publishing income generated by Police songs where he was the sole songwriter.
That includes most of the band’s big hits, not least the ridiculously lucrative - if somewhat creepy - ‘Every Breath You Take’. Songs written by Sting, including for The Police, continue to generate mega-bucks, of course, which is why he was able to negotiate a catalogue sale with Universal Music in 2022 worth a reported $300 million.
Even though that 1970s agreement was revised in 1995 and then again in 2016, there is an ongoing dispute about precisely what publishing income the 15% royalty is due on.
When Summers and Copeland went legal last year, it was revealed that part of that dispute related to whether or not the bandmates were only due a cut of the revenues directly managed by Sting’s music publisher, or whether they were also due a cut of any money collected for Sting by PRS.
Collecting society PRS collects money due to songwriters from the live and public performance of their music, as well as some streaming income and money due from radio broadcasts. Given songs like ‘Every Breath You Take’ are heavily streamed and are radio favourites with heavy airplay you can see why Summers and Copeland would want a cut of that income too.
The musicians argued Sting was incorrectly interpreting the old agreement, meaning they were only getting 15% of some income streams. In total, they reckoned that meant they had been short-changed anywhere between £1.5 million and £8 million.
According to the BBC, lawyers for Summers and Copeland told the court this week that there is now a separate dispute over whether or not the 15% royalty applies to streaming income, including that managed by Sting’s publisher rather than PRS, or just physical income.
Sting’s people seemingly argue that of the money that flows via his publisher, the royalty share agreement only applies on the sale of physical discs, not streaming. They point out that even the 2016 revision of the agreement talks about sharing money generated “from the manufacture of records”.
But Summers and Copeland reckon they are due a cut of all digital revenues too, arguing that any talk of ‘sales income’ in old agreements should be interpreted to include streaming, because streaming income has basically replaced most of what was sales income back in the day.
If the court allows the separate dispute over digital income to be added to the lawsuit, and if that claim was to succeed, that’s what would potentially take the total amount of money Sting owes well over £8 million.
Sting’s lawyers insist that the new claims around digital income would have “no real prospect of success” if they were to be properly scrutinised in court - not least because of the wording of that 2016 contract - and therefore the judge should not allow them to be added to the lawsuit at this stage.
The £647,000 that Sting has recently paid to Summers and Copeland stems from a “historic underpayment” discovered as part of this process, according to updates provided to the court this week.
While acknowledging that payment, lawyers for Summers and Copeland obviously believe it's considerably less than what their clients are due. They’ve also complained that no interest has been added to the £647,000.