Musical Duo Sues Universal Music Group Over Spotify Equity Ownership

It’s not often that Music Business Worldwide is itself cited in a significant lawsuit in the music business, but that’s the case today.

Before we get into the weeds on how that happened, here’s the skinny on the suit: Hip-hop duo Black Sheep, best known the 1991 album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, are suing Universal Music Group in a class action lawsuit, filed yesterday (January 4) in New York.

NYC-based Andres Titus and William McLean, via their attorneys, make three main claims:

(i) That Black Sheep and other artists signed to Universal should have been paid 50% of royalties from Spotify since 2011 due to a clause in their contracts pertaining to “net receipts”; (ii) That UMG agreed to accept lower royalty rates from Spotify in exchange for receiving equity in the streaming service back in 2008; and (iii) That Black Sheep and other artists should also have received 50% of UMG’s Spotify equity (or the value of it) because, according to the duo’s suit, this would be “proportional” to their royalty contract.

Read the source article at musicbusinessworldwide.com