Former members of Supertramp are in court in California this week in a legal battle over song royalties. Dougie Thomson, John Helliwell and Bob Siebenberg - all members of the classic Supertramp line-up of the 1970s and early 1980s - accuse former bandmate Roger Hodgson of reneging on a 1977 agreement to share revenue stemming from the band's songs.
A legal rep for Hodgson, Alan S Gutman, insists that agreement was never a permanent arrangement. According to Law360, he told the court yesterday, "They wanted perpetuity, they didn't get it from Roger Hodgson. There is no document, no agreement that you are going to see during the course of this trial that says they have a right to receive money from Roger Hodgson from a portion of his songwriting royalties forever".
"Unlike Mr Hodgson's song that was called 'Give A Little Bit', he's already given a lot", the attorney continued. "There's nothing that says they're entitled to a portion of the songwriting royalties forever".
Hodgson co-wrote Supertramp's songs during the band's heyday with fellow founder member Rick Davies. However, via that 1977 agreement the two songwriters committed to share the royalties that those songs generated with their other bandmates, who would otherwise only receive royalties on the recordings side.
According to Thomson, Helliwell and Siebenberg, they received the payments they were due under that agreement for decades, but then - several years ago - they abruptly stopped.
They filed their lawsuit in LA in 2021, naming both Hodgson and Davies, as well as publishing companies Delicate Music and Universal Music Publishing, and US collecting society ASCAP, as defendants. However, Davies subsequently settled the dispute, and both Universal and ASCAP were dismissed as defendants.
Countering the argument that Hodgson was able to cancel the 1977 agreement whenever he liked, a legal rep for Thomson, Helliwell and Siebenberg told the court that "every other post-1977 document says [the same thing]. Namely, that the 1977 sharing arrangement was meant to last forever".
The trial continues.