Following the recent lawsuit filed by the Police's Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland over lost royalties from Every Breath You Take, Sting's representatives are responding with the claim that the band members may have been “substantially overpaid” royalties.
According to reports by The New York Times, Summers and Copeland are arguing that they're owed “arranger’s fees” for income made from the “digital exploitation” of the Police’s back catalog, with Sting owing them “in excess of $2 million,” according to official documents lodged with the High Court in London.
From their end, Sting's legal team argues the artist has paid his former bandmates correctly, as per an agreement signed by the trio in 2016 to draw a line under previous disputes revolving around the “arranger’s fees.” Furthermore, the lawyers go as far as to claim that the current legal action is “an illegitimate attempt” to reinterpret that document.
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A spokesman for the High Court states that an administrative hearing related to the case was scheduled for January.
The current legal dispute is far from simple, as it deals with publishing rights and income derived from copyrights related to songwriting, with these rights being incredibly valuable, especially for a band as lucrative as the Police. It's enough to mention that, in 2022, Sting sold his songwriting catalog to Universal Music Group for a reported $300 million.
Copeland and Summers allege that, in 1977, the trio agreed to share 15 percent of the publishing income from any song they wrote for the Police, despite Sting writing the majority of the band's hits. Sales of sheet music and cover versions were exempted from this agreement.
Three years later, the court documents state that the bandmates formalized that agreement in a series of written agreements. It was later revised in 1997, after Copeland and Summers reached out to the Police's lawyers, asserting that they were eager to find the original contract, as they believed they had been underpaid “for a considerable period.”
In 2016, the band signed a new agreement following a dispute over whether Sting should pay his former bandmates a share of the publishing income derived from the use of the band's music in TV shows and movies, with Summers and Copeland alleging that they had not been paid in full for the “digital exploitation” of the band's repertoire.
Sting's defense documents state that they were paid their fair share and that Sting does not owe them anything more. Furthermore, his lawyer states that, depending on how the 2016 agreement is interpreted, Sting owes his former bandmates nothing from the band's music online and may have even “substantially overpaid” them.
According to reports by The Daily Mail, Every Breath You Take alone earns nearly $740,000 a year in royalties – but it is only credited to Sting under his full name, Gordon Matthew Sumner.
As for Summers, he has asserted multiple times that he deserves credit for the mega-hit, since his guitar part has been central to its success, even telling Guitarist in 2022 that the riff “has become a kind of immortal guitar part that all guitar players have to learn.
“Well, I didn’t stand there and crow about it. It was more about keeping those other bastards happy,” the guitarist said, referring to when he came up with the now-iconic guitar riff.
“That song was going to be thrown out. Sting and Stewart could not agree on how the bass and drums were going to go. We were in the middle of Synchronicity, and Sting says, ‘Well, go on then, go in there and make it your own.’
“And I did it in one take. They all stood up and clapped. And, of course, the fucking thing went right round the world, straight to No. 1 in America.”
In more recent Sting news, his longtime guitarist, Dominic Miller, reveals whether any Police songs prove tricky to recreate without the original lineup.
