Overview
- A two-day preliminary hearing began in London before Mr Justice Bright and is due to conclude on Thursday, with a full trial expected later.
- Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland claim roughly $2 million and seek permission to broaden their case to include downloads and streaming as part of all publishing income.
- Court filings show Sting has paid more than $800,000 as “admitted historic underpayments,” though his lawyers argue some sums could constitute overpayment.
- The central issue is whether a long-standing 15% arranger’s fee applies to streaming, with Sting’s team citing a 2016 agreement limiting payments to mechanical income “from the manufacture of records.”
- The dispute traces back to an oral deal from 1977 later formalised in 1981 and revisited in 1997 and 2016, against the backdrop of Sting’s 2022 sale of his songwriting catalogue to Universal.