Lit — the rock band greatest identified for his or her 1999 hit My Personal Worst Enemy — are suing Sony Music Leisure (SME) for alleged breach of contract, claiming the foremost has underpaid them over USD $800,000 in streaming royalties.
The grievance, filed March 2 within the Southern District of New York, was introduced by band members Jeremy Popoff, Alan “Ajay” Popoff, Kevin Baldes, and the Allen Shellenberger Dwelling Belief, the property of the band’s late drummer.
In keeping with the submitting, obtained by MBW, and which you’ll learn in full right here, the 4 initially signed their unique recording settlement with RCA Data – now a part of Sony Music – in October 1998.
The central allegation: Sony has been paying Lit’s audio streaming royalties at a flat 14% fee, when their contract really requires these royalties to be calculated on a “Internet Receipts” foundation — sometimes a much more favorable method for artists, because it’s pegged to the income the label really collects from DSPs.
The band declare their deal explicitly distinguishes between digital downloads and streams, with the latter handled extra like a grasp use or sync license — triggering the online receipts calculation. Sony, they allege, has ignored that distinction for years.
The grievance alleges that Sony carried out these breaches “with full data of the huge variety of equally located artists materially impacted by Defendant’s intentional breaches of its personal contractual language”.
The lawsuit additionally raises two additional allegations. The band allege Sony additionally utilized the fallacious method to video streaming royalties, paying roughly 17% as an alternative of a fee primarily based on 50% of internet receipts.
And so they declare Sony by no means utilized the escalated royalty charges their deal requires as soon as their album A Place within the Solar crossed gold and platinum gross sales thresholds — bumps that ought to have taken their fee from 14% as much as 15%.
My Personal Worst Enemy has racked up over 500 million streams on Spotify alone, in response to the grievance, and A Place within the Solar was licensed platinum within the US.
The observe received the Billboard Music Award for the largest fashionable rock tune of 1999, and the band say they’ve continued touring constantly, introducing their catalogue to new generations of followers. That ongoing streaming exercise, the band argue, makes Sony’s alleged use of the fallacious method all of the extra pricey.
The group additionally declare that Sony largely stopped participating with their considerations. The plaintiffs say they first raised accounting objections in July 2023 and saved urgent by way of 2025. Sony, in response to the grievance, initially supplied a restricted protection of its place — after which from late April 2024 stopped responding to the band’s counsel altogether for the remainder of that 12 months.
Through the entirety of the dispute, the submitting states, “SME has by no means supplied a coherent place supporting its ‘interpretation’ of the streaming provision at situation.”
Past the alleged royalty shortfall, the band declare Sony’s underreporting lowered their pension contributions and affected their eligibility for medical insurance by way of SAG-AFTRA — a consequence they describe as notably pressing.
Lit are looking for full damages, attorneys’ charges, and a jury trial. MBW has reached out to Sony Music for remark.
The lawsuit provides to a rising listing of legacy artists difficult the way in which main labels calculate streaming royalties underneath offers that predate the rise of Spotify and its rivals.
Comparable disputes have been introduced in recent times by Enrique Iglesias towards Common, by 4 Tet towards Domino Data, and by the rap duo Black Sheep towards UMG — all of which centered on how streaming revenue needs to be categorized underneath pre-streaming-era contracts.Music Enterprise Worldwide
