A New York-based company called Artists Rights Enforcement Corporation has sued Dionne Warwick seeking to enforce past contracts which give it a share of her royalty income from Warner Music and Sony Music, and collecting societies SoundExchange and PPL. She seemingly tried to terminate those past deals in September this year.
In a lawsuit filed with the courts in New York, Artist Rights says that it has worked with Warwick since 2002, initially overseeing a legal dispute with Warner regarding what royalties she was due from past recordings owned by its Warner Bros, Atlantic and catalogue labels.
Subsequent work saw Artist Rights also sort out issues that were stopping Warwick from receiving royalties due on recordings controlled by Sony’s Arista Records, as well as performer remuneration payments from SoundExchange in the US and PPL in the UK.
The rights management firm says that it provides services of this kind to various artists and songwriters, fronting any legal and administrative costs, and then taking a percentage of subsequent royalty income. With Warwick, its deals granted it 25% of SoundExchange and PPL income, and 50% of the label royalties, with most payments flowing initially to Artist Rights, so it could deduct its cut.
Those commissions might seem quite high, but Artist Rights argues that Warwick’s label royalties “increased approximately sixtyfold” as a result of its work, generating “more than $2.5 million in revenue, including an average of over $350,000 annually over the past five years”. It also agreed to slightly amend some of its commissions when Warwick previously requested changes to her ongoing deals.
But then, in September, Artist Rights claims, Warwick’s lawyer sent a letter, the substance of which was “unclear”, but in which the singer seemed to be “unilaterally” terminating the past contracts. Since then, Warwick or her legal team have asked Warner, Sony and PPL to start paying royalties directly to the artist.
To that end, Artist Rights wants the court to declare that Warwick has “wrongfully and unreasonably repudiated the contracts”, and that the company is still due its 25-50% of her future royalty income.
