Weird Al Yankovic, through his company Ear Booker Enterprises, is suing Sony Music Entertainment for five million dollars. One of the reasons behind this lawsuit is that Sony Music made wrongful sales, which resulted in great under payments. Another reason for the suit is that the company was also paying Yankovic the price for downloads sales instead of the 50% that license sales are suppose to get. Additionally, claims have been made saying that Sony Music hasn't shared any money it received from lawsuit settlements cites such as Napster, Kazaa and Grokster.
The lawsuit stated that Sony Music accepted a piece agreement with YouTube in exchange for providing the site with the company's advertisement. At that time, Sony Music was given a piece agreement with Al. Yankovic's "White & Nerdy" video was one of the most popular vidoes on the site. The suit says, "a portion of Sony's equity share in YouTube is directly apportionable and allocable to "White and Nerdy," as well as other content created by Yankovic".
The Inquisitr states that, "Eminem won a case in federal Supreme Court and in March Sony settled a class action lawsuit for $8 million, that lawsuit was settled over similar terms". Similarly, the rapper sued his record label, Universal Music Group, "for the way royalties are calculated for digital music on whether they are considered a license or a sale." Richard Busch, who is a partner from the Nashville-based firm, is already known for winning cases against the Universal Music Group for treating downloads as a sale instead of a license and now the major has to pay Eminem's former production company, F.B.T. Productions, 50% of net fees from download sales.
