Sting’s former Police bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland claim they are owed more than $2 million in unpaid royalties, according to legal documents made public this week, The New York Times reports.
Last month, reports emerged that Summers and Copeland had sued Sting (real name Gordon Matthew Sumner) in London High Court, claiming they weren’t properly compensated for their contributions to Police hits like “Every Breath You Take.” The newly-released documents shed light on the specifics of the complaint, with Summers and Copeland alleging that they’re owed an “arranger’s fee” for royalties tied to the “digital exploitation” of the Police’s back catalog.
Sting’s lawyers have filed a response to the suit as well, claiming that the frontman has not skimped out on his old bandmates. His legal team called the lawsuit “an illegitimate attempt” to reinterpret an agreement all three members of the Police signed in 2016 that was supposed to put an end to these arranger’s fee disputes.
Reps for Copeland and Summers, as well as Sting, did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.
In a way, the legal dispute goes all the way back to 1977, when Copeland and Summers say the Police verbally agreed to a publishing split: It stipulated that whenever a member of the Police received income from a song they wrote for the band, they would share 15 percent of that income with the other two members. Sting, of course, was the band’s primary songwriter and has sole writing credits on most of their biggest hits, like “Roxanne,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” and “Every Breath You Take.”
Copeland and Summers go on to say that this verbal agreement was formalized and written down in 1981. In 1997, these documents were revised after the pair alleged that they had been underpaid “for a considerable period.” In 2016, the latest agreement was signed, this time addressing how much Sting should pay his former bandmates when the Police’s songs were featured in TV shows and movies.
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What seems to be at the heart of this latest dispute is publishing royalties for digital exploitation, meaning online sales or streaming. While Copeland and Summers claim they haven’t received their fair share, Sting’s lawyers have countered that not only have they been properly compensated, but they might have been “substantially overpaid.” They allege that, depending on how the 2016 agreement is interpreted, Sting may not technically have to pay his bandmates anything when the Police’s music is played or sold online.
An administrative hearing for the case is scheduled to take place in January.
