When the Police formed in 1977, the trio agreed to a royalty-sharing plan that would recognize each member’s contributions to the group’s finished work.
But according to new details in the lawsuit Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland have brought against Sting, things haven’t gone according to plan.
Initial reports about the lawsuit indicated it was over royalties for the group’s 1984 hit “Every Breath You Take.”
But a new report from The New York Times says it encompasses the broad swath of the group’s output credited to Sting, whose real name is Gordon Sumner.
In their lawsuit, Summers and Copeland claim they are owned “arranger’s fees” on income earned from the “digital exploitation” of the group’s catalog. According to the filing, the two men are owed In excess of $2 million.
The origin of their complaint goes back to the group’s initial agreement at the time that they formed. The trio verbally agreed that each would share with the other two 15 percent of the royalties from any song written for the group. Money from sales of sheet music and covers performed by other acts were omitted.
In 1981, they formalized the terms in a written agreement. The contract was revised in 1997 after Summers and Copeland said they had been underpaid by Sting, the band’s main songwriter and hit maker, “for a considerable period.”
Following a dispute about whether Sting should pay the others publishing shares for songs used in TV shows and movies, the three men inked a new contract in 2016, which aimed to resolve previous disputes about “arranger’s fees.”
In their new lawsuit, Copeland and Summers claim Sting has not paid them in full for the “digital exploitation” of the group’s songs. In his defense document, the bass guitarist claims he has made payment and owes them nothing more under the terms of the 2016 contract.
Sting’s lawyers called the new lawsuit “an illegitimate attempt” to reinterpret that agreement. They add that, depending on how the 2016 contract is interpreted, he may owe the others nothing from online use of songs he wrote for the group, and in fact may have “substantially overpaid” them.
The Police became one of rock’s biggest groups during their initial eight years together, from 1977 to 1984. Their catalog has continued to sell in the millions and earn substantial income from royalties on sales, broadcast, streaming, movies and TV shows and other forms of use.
Among the group’s biggest hits are “Roxanne,” “Message in a Bottle” and “Every Breath You Take,” the latter two of which feature Summers' signature electric guitar riffs. He considers his contributions to "Every Breath You Take" substantial enough that he has said he deserves co-writing credit for the song.
