Posted on 06/03/2009 11:39:13 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Cher has sued Universal Music Group, claiming that the label's creative accounting has shortchanged her and the heirs of her late ex-husband, Sonny Bono, to the tune of $5 million.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims an audit of UMG's accounting to the singer-actress from 2000 to 2003 showed that UMG executives "engaged in wrongful tactics" designed to hide revenue from two hit compilation albums.
The five-count, 22-page complaint claims breach of two recording contracts Cher had with UMG predecessors, one with MCA division Kapp Records in 1972 and a 1987 deal with the David Geffen Company. Cher claims that those deals entitled her -- and, in the case of the 1972 deal, Bono -- to receive up to 50 percent of net royalties received by UMG...
"Instead of reporting to and paying plaintiffs their share of the revenues generated by Warner U.K., UMG Recordings, in an egregious example of self-dealing, apparently inserted Universal International as a middleman in the transaction ... for the sole purpose of diverting money that rightfully belonged to plaintiffs to Universal International," the complaint says...
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Music industry culture of corruption PING thing.
As Frank Zappa said, no one who ever went into a record company with an auditor ever walked out empty handed.
And yet the industry swears that musicians are hurting because of digital downloads, not creative accounting.
Your label is not your friend. ASCAP and BMI are not your friends. They collect money on your behalf. Paying it TO YOU is another matter entirely. They like to see their bottom line increase too.
Frank Zappa and Robert Fripp are two artists I recognize as having created their own labels (Barking Pumpkin and Discipline, respectively) to publish and distribute their own work (I think that’s right). Who else has done that?
Herb Alpert created A&M Records with Jerry Moss.
Prince did it for awhile. It is part of the reason he changed his name. To confound WB while he still owed them albums.
He released albums on his own for awhile and then went to Sony.
Bowie left the majors for Rycodisc because he didn’t like RCA putting his albums out as budget releases using inferior source materials. Eventually he went to another company as well.
I presume Cher is liberal like most of the denizens of Hollywood, but I give her credit for not badmouthing Sonny in politics and giving an offbeat but acceptable eulogy at his funeral. It shows that just because people differ in their political views they don’t have to vilify each other.
Frank, Prince, and others also had home studios. Saved on expenses.
Many bands “owe” their label bogus production costs that take years to pay off for recording an album where the label instructs them to go.
She must make a FORTUNE on Groundhog Day!
I guess Cher nees the money, she hasnt been working a lot lately.
Heaven forbid, she’s getting ripped off on “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.”
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