FROM YAHOO NEWS!

The Beatles sue EMI over disputed royalties Friday December 16, 04:52 PM    


LONDON (Reuters) - Echoing their song "You Never Give Me Your Money", The Beatles have sued record company EMI Group, claiming that they are owed 30 million pounds in royalties after negotiations broke down.

Apple, the company owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison, said on Friday that an audit determined that EMI had not been fulfilling the terms of its contract.

Shares in EMI, which owns the copyright to The Beatles recordings in perpetuity, had fallen 2 percent to 237 pence by 4:24 p.m.

"Despite very clear provisions in our contract, EMI persist in ignoring their obligations and duty to account fairly and with transparency. Apple and The Beatles are, once again, left with no choice but to sue EMI," Apple said in a statement.

Lawsuits were filed on Thursday against EMI in London and against its Capitol Records subsidiary in New York after the parties failed to reach a deal.

"Artists do sometimes request an audit of their record label's accounts, that's not unusual, but sometimes there are differences of opinion, especially when the contracts are large and complex, when you can get issues of contractual interpretation," an EMI spokeswoman said.

"Ninety-nine out of 100 audit problems are resolved by amicable settlements for a small fraction of the claim," she said.

Apple and EMI have already fought a decade-long courtroom battle over royalties and other issues, which was resolved out of court in 1989. Apple Records claimed that EMI secretly sold or gave away millions of records to retailers.

The dispute over royalties follows a settlement of more than $50 million (28 million pounds) paid to dozens of artists by a group of music companies including EMI, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, BMG and Warner Music. The 2004 deal centred on unclaimed royalties and was brokered by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Apple has also filed lawsuits in the past against Nike Inc

for using the Beatles song "Revolution" in a commercial, and against Apple Computer in a trademark dispute.

I suppose the best thing that could come of this for us fans is that Apple would make a deal with EMI to release a new Anthology series, so the guys and relatives could get the money they want! Still my wishful thinking though, probably!

bloody EMI

Quoted from lennonlegend

bloody EMI

Is it right that EMI stands for Earn More Income!?  

Extra Money Indeed

There was a report on UK ITN News, and the DJ Paul Gambacinni was being interviewed. He said that the guys had grossed over 1 BILLION POUNDS between them since they started with EMI, and that the sum of £30M is by comparison very little. He implied, to most people that's an enormous amount of money, but to the guys and their relatives... He was obviously implying greed from the way he said it.

Any views on that? £30M is £30M after all!

Money, that's what we want, say Beatles in £30m royalty row

The best things in life may be free but, as the Beatles made clear in 1963, "give me money, now that's what I want". According to Apple Corps, a company set up under the Granny Smith logo in 1968 to release the Beatles' songs and manage their creative affairs, record labels are shortchanging the firm in royalties.
So yesterday, lawsuits were launched in an attempt to recover £30 million.
Ordinarily, the shareholders - Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr (listed under his real name, Richard Starkey), Olivia Harrison, who replaced her husband George on the board a month before he died, and Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow - have little to complain about. Apple's main purpose is to exploit anything relating to the Beatles - and with compilation albums like their number one hits becoming the fastest selling in history, their wealth keeps piling up.
Yesterday's action in the High Court followed audits by Apple at several record labels. The £30 million claim relates to what Apple says are "unpaid royalties" from recordings sold across the world. It is suing HMV, which in 1962 first recorded the band at its Abbey Road studios, playing Besame Mucho, P.S. I Love You, Ask Me Why and Love Me Do for the Parlophone label. America's Capitol Records, which released the early Beatles recordings in the US, is also being sued in the New York Supreme Court. Neil Aspinall, the head of Apple, who attended Liverpool Institute with McCartney and Harrison, and was their driver before becoming their road manager, said the audits had been carried out by the firm's royalty investigators. A "breakdown" had occurred in negotiations with EMI.
McCartney, Starr and Mrs Harrison were reported last year to be worth a total of £1,965 million. McCartney's fortune is said to have swept past the £800 million mark after he signed up to promote the United States-based Fidelity Investments - and, at 63, he said yesterday, while recording tonight's Michael Parkinson show on ITV, he had no plans to retire. He said: "People say: 'Why do you keep doing it?' And I say: 'Why shouldn't I?' I love it. I like what I do and as long as the audiences like it, why should I stop?" McCartney estimated that he had written "nearly 300 songs" with Lennon. The musician, whose youngest daughter is two, is plugging his new children's book, High in the Clouds. Starr, who concentrates on his London-based charity, the Lotus Foundation, is worth £125 million, as are Mrs Harrison and her son Dhani.
The band's legal battles date back to 1988 when a New York court reinstated punitive damages and claims of fraud and theft against Capitol Records in a nine-year-old £47 million breach of contract suit brought by Apple. At the time, a £23 million suit, claiming Capitol had deliberately stalled the release of Beatles CDs was dismissed.