John Hall: Last News

A US judge last week cut back a lawsuit filed by members of the rock band Orleans against Warner Music over the way the major has been processing and paying streaming royalties. Some of the claims made by the band in the lawsuit were dismissed, although some remain.At the core of the litigation filed by Orleans members John Hall and Lance Hoppen is a common gripe in the artist community: record companies allowing their foreign subsidiaries to make deductions on digital income and then calculating the artist royalty based on what is received by the label in the artist’s home country after those deductions.

Sounds like Josh Duggar’s getting the opposite of VIP treatment in prison!

Two members of American rock band Orleans have sued Warner Music over a common gripe in the artist community: record companies allowing their foreign subsidiaries to make deductions on digital income and then calculating the artist royalty based on what is received by the label in the artist’s home country after those deductions.In a lawsuit filed with the courts in Nashville, John Hall and Lance Hoppen criticise the major both for making those international deductions in the first place and for failing to clearly communicate that was happening on their royalty statements.As a result of the bad communication, they add, they’d previously assumed their artist royalty on streams was being calculated based on ‘at-source income’, ie what the major was paid by the streaming service, not what was received by the home label after the foreign subsidiaries had taken their cut.The legal filing, which seeks class action status, says: “Fees to foreign affiliates are a relic of the days when the collection of revenues from foreign record sales entailed significant labour, as opposed to the relatively frictionless methodology by which digital service providers can compensate rightsholders for the use of their services across multiple territories”.“In such instances”, it adds, “the costs of foreign collection are negligible, and the grossly deficient payment of foreign streaming royalties by defendants simply reflects their ability to manipulate their foreign affiliate practices with no commercial justification beyond self-enrichment”.Regarding Warner’s alleged failure to communicate the international deductions, the lawsuit adds: “Defendants purposefully and knowingly withhold and fail to inform plaintiffs and the class members of the