A Californian court yesterday ruled that Supertramp co-founder Roger Hodgson was within his rights to end a past commitment to share songwriter royalties with three of his old bandmates, because a 1970s agreement didn’t explicitly say it applied in perpetuity, meaning it could be cancelled after a “reasonable time”.
Both sides in the case said that the legal battle centred on greed, but there was a difference of opinion over who was being greedy. According to Law360, Hodgson's lawyer, Alan S Gutman, summed up at the end of a week-long trial by stating that the dispute is “all about greed”, adding, “This is about a pack of wolves coming after my client for a piece of the songwriting royalties - for the songs that he wrote, that came from his soul, that he developed".
Responding, David M Given - representing former Supertramp members John Helliwell, Robert Siebenberg and Douglas Thomson - motioned to the ageing musicians and said, "Pack of wolves? Do these guys look like a pack of wolves to you? This is about greed and keeping your promise".
Hodgson co-wrote Supertramp's songs during the band's heyday in the 1970s with fellow founder member Rick Davies. However, in a 1977 agreement the two co-writers agreed to share royalties generated by those songs with Helliwell, Siebenberg and Thomson.
All of the band's members who testified during the trial said that that agreement was reached to help the other three band members financially because - despite their success in the charts at the time - their label kept most of the money generated by their recordings. So at least they were in agreement about who was greedy back in the day. But who is being greedy now?
Helliwell, Siebenberg and Thomson received their cut of the song royalties for decades, but then the payments stopped in 2018. They sued both Hodgson and Davies in 2021, though Davies subsequently reached an out-of-court settlement. However, Hodgson and his company Delicate Music insisted that they could unilaterally cancel the 1977 agreement if they so wished, and therefore allowed the dispute to proceed to court.
Although it was a jury trial, a decision made by the judge as the proceedings progressed greatly aided Hodgson's case. Judge André Birotte Jr ruled that, because the 1977 agreement didn't state that the royalty commitments would apply in perpetuity, nor did it set an explicit expiry date, either party had the right to terminate the contract after a "reasonable time". It was then for the jury to decide if 41 years was reasonable. Which they did.
Speaking for the three musicians during the trial, Given argued that in perpetuity agreements are common in the music industry - or certainly were - and therefore it was understood that the 1977 agreement would be in place until the copyrights generating the royalties being paid to his clients expired.
Following the judgement, the lawyer told reporters that the "judge made a grievous error" in his ruling, adding "the duration of the contract should be implied to extend to as long as the asset is generating revenues".
Meanwhile, speaking to the media on behalf of his client, Gutman said, "I want to applaud Mr Hodgson's courage of his convictions. He believed very strongly as a moral imperative that this was the right thing to do, and that these are his songs and he wanted them back. And I think to correct a portion of the history with his legacy".