On Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter said 19 Recordings has filed a lawsuit against Sony Music over greed and corruption allegations. The recording company, which is known to have managed the careers of some of the "American Idol" winners and contestants insisted that Sony Music has cheated out its recording artists of its royalties worth millions of dollars.
"American" Idol creator Simon Fuller founded the recording company, which is now controlled by Core Media Group, which is the show's owner. Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry are some of the biggest names in the music industry and products of the reality singing competition that were reportedly cheated by Sony Music in connection with "Idol." 19 Recordings is looking for $10 million at least in damages. THR said the lawsuit followed 19 Recording's audit of Sony's books as part of their recording agreements. It had been said that both companies could not come to a settlement regarding royalties of 19 Recordings' artists, as the main contestation was how Sony had underpaid the latter's artists in their many recording deals in terms of their streaming royalties.
19 Recordings reportedly said in the lawsuit that Sony Music relabeled master recordings of songs as "sales" or "distributions" to be able to the royalty payments it forks over to 19 Recordings in reduced amounts. THR said that the decision of the court regarding this lawsuit could be a predecessor to how companies pay streaming royalties to artists.
Another claim made by 19 Recordings is that Sony had been improper deductions of television advertising expenses, music videos and other creative productions of the former's artists. The "Idol" recording company said Sony resorted to unscrupulous accounting to be able to recoup ad money spent on 19 Recordings' artists.
19 Entertainment worldwide head of music Jason Morey stated, "We did not want to have to file this lawsuit, but Sony left us no choice, so this became necessary to protect our artists. Our complaint lays out the claims in great detail. Everything we have to say about the case is set forth in it."
