Key Takeaways
- Rock band Lit has reached a settlement with Sony Music over streaming royalties for their '90s catalog.
- The lawsuit was filed in March by the band members seeking a greater share of their streaming royalties.
- Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it is expected to resolve the long-standing dispute.
Rock band Lit has reached a settlement with Sony Music over an $800,000 lawsuit regarding streaming royalties for their '90s catalog. The members of Lit—frontman A. Jay Popoff, guitarist Jeremy Popoff, bassist Kevin Baldes and the estate of late drummer Allen Shellenberger—have agreed to end the legal battle with Sony Music Entertainment Inc., according to a court filing obtained by Billboard on July 7.
Lit is best known for their hit single 'My Own Worst Enemy,' which topped Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart for 11 weeks and has garnered over 500 million streams on Spotify. The band sued Sony in March, claiming they were entitled to a greater share of their streaming royalties due to a clause in their 1998 record deal with RCA Records.
The lawsuit alleged that the band was owed $800,000 in allegedly underpaid streaming royalties because of an anomalous contract language from 1998. This clause allocated the band 50% of net proceeds from master use licenses of their music, specifically mentioning 'RCA’s license to another person of the right to embody a master recording on a website in a so-called ‘streaming’ format.'
Music streaming was still in its nascent stage in 1998; MP3s were only invented in 1993, and mainstream streaming platforms like PressPlay and Rhapsody didn't launch until the early 2000s. Even Napster, which hosted music downloading rather than streaming, arrived in 1999. This clause made it into Lit's record deal despite the lack of widespread understanding or implementation of streaming technology at that time.
Lit’s members claimed that this clause entitled them to a more favorable split of their royalties. They tried to negotiate a better agreement before going to court but faced a 'half-hearted defense' from Sony, which eventually stopped responding entirely. In May, a lawyer for Sony said in a court filing that the band had ‘commenced settlement discussions’ after the lawsuit was filed.
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, and representatives for Lit and Sony did not immediately return requests for comment on the resolution. However, it is expected to bring closure to the long-standing dispute between the band and the record label. A judge closed the case following notification of the deal on Tuesday.
