“Weird Al” Yankovic and Sony have settled a $5 million lawsuit. Sony settled with “Weird Al” for an undisclosed amount following the parodist’s lawsuit against the label for $5 million in underpaid royalties. Their legal battle began in March of 2012, though the two parties had been sparring since early 2010. An audit by Yankovic’s Ear Booker company uncovered dozens of bookkeeping offenses, but the lion’s share had to do with digital media.
Fun as it is to read sentences like, “The documentation provided by Sony revealed that Sony failed to pay the publishing royalties due for physical sales of albums Running With Scissors and Poodle Hat,” the real beef has to do with iTunes and YouTube. In regard to the former, a 2012 suit between Eminem and Universal redefined the artist-label royalties percentage breakdown. As for the latter, Yankovic says he saw no revenue at all from clips like “White & Nerdy.”
