Max Romeo, a legendary reggae artist, has sued UMG Recordings and Polygram Publishing, Inc. for $15 million, alleging unpaid royalties on 19 songs, including War Ina Babylon, One Step Forward, and his biggest hit, Chase The Devil, which was sampled by Kanye West and Jay-Z and used in the Grand Theft Auto video game series a successful gaming franchise. The action-packed Rockstar game has sold several hundred copies.
Romeo, 78, stated to a prominent entertainment news outlet that on December 15, 2022, his attorneys, Schwartz & Ponterio, PLLC, filed a breach of contract case on his behalf in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. In response to Judge Suzanne Adams’ earlier this year partial dismissal of the case, the lawsuit was updated in a fresh filing on September 29.
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Regarding his 9-track War Ina Babylon (1976) and 10-track Reconstruction (1977) albums, the topic of dispute is royalties. Romeo had worked with the late Lee “Scratch” Perry to make War Ina Babylon as part of a recording deal they had with Island Records, which was then controlled by Christopher Blackwell. Perry’s Black Ark Studio and his house band, The Upsetters, were used. Romeo and Island Music also entered a songwriting contract.
The two contracts stipulated that Romeo would receive 25 and 50 percent of the royalties from the recordings and compositions, respectively, but Romeo claims that UMG and Polygram, who took over Island Records and Island Music through a series of mergers and acquisitions, have withheld his due royalties since 1976.
The reggae legend claimed that he has never received payments from royalties made for the songs mentioned earlier, “I have never been paid, I can’t say much about it. It is being taken care of…so I don’t want to talk too much about the subject. Maybe in a couple of months from now, you can call me back, and we can discuss it openly, so hopefully it will be resolved.”
Max Romeo, whose actual name is Maxwell Smith, went on to describe the difficulties of the predicament, saying, “Apart from mechanical rights and performing rights, in some aspects, there were no royalties. I haven’t received a dollar from the major part of the publishing. It is a complicated thing.”
Romeo’s amended lawsuit, which was retrieved, purposefully began with a passage from Sir Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, who advocated for an environment where “ the creators of all music content, whether in the form of audio or short-form video are fairly compensated.”
Romeo’s complaint claims that UMG and Polygram only produced “incomplete and inaccurate” royalty accounts for the first time in September 2021, three months after he requested a full accounting. The statements covered the years 1976 to 2021.
Romeo received US$125,565.04 from UMG in September 2021, followed by minor payments that “did not come close to bringing the account for the Romeo Recordings current” and “nor did they compensate Romeo for lost interest on the late payments,” according to the complaint.
It displayed a clear illustration of “false” royalties accounting.: “The Island Records compilation ‘Island Reggae Triple Best Of’ contains three Romeo recordings – War Ina Babylon, One Step Forward, and Chase The Devil. The compilation was only ever released on CD therefore without product variation it follows that earnings in respect of each of Romeo’s three songs on the compilation should therefore be identical. However, UMG has reported different sales for the three songs on the CD compilation – a physical impossibility. Furthermore, one of the songs on the compilation has a different royalty rate to the other two: despite all the songs falling under the same agreement and therefore, subject to the same royalty rate. Similar instances of such failings apply to other compilations in Romeo’s royalty statements.”
Romeo Recordings and Compositions are allegedly missing from the Island Records soundtrack for the recent Idris Elba-directed movie Yardie, according to the lawsuit. The defendants are also alleged to have failed to give Romeo the contractually required amount of accounting for all sales, downloads, streams, and third-party license income.
Additionally, Romeo’s legal team argued that after its first release, War in a Babylon received multiple extra pressings and that more than one million copies were sold.
The lawsuit also alleged that other musicians, including American rapper Jay-Z in the song Lucifer, produced by Kanye West, and UK electronic dance group The Prodigy in their song, Out Of Space, had sampled Romeo’s songs and used them for synchronization in television, movies, and video games.
Romeo asserted that despite having been listed as the author of these two songs, Polygram Publishing had not paid him “a dime in royalties” for their use.
The lawsuit claimed that Chase The Devil was also licensed for use in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas [GTASA], which was “considered by many reviewers to be one of the greatest video games ever made and one of the highest-selling video games of all time,” as well as the “hugely successful 2011 feature film Paul featuring Seth Rogen, which grossed nearly $100 million worldwide.”
According to the complaint, UMG accounted to Romeo for his song Chase The Devil to the degree that he earned 25% of a $5,000 synchronization fee’ for usage of the song.
The complaint noted, “Grand Theft Auto was the number one brand in gaming and GTASA became the number one best-selling game in history upon its release. The synchronization fee is well below commercial expectations and industry standards for a release of this magnitude.”
The complaint further stated that “Interscope Records,” a subsidiary of UMG Recordings, had issued the GTASA original soundtrack, which contained Chase The Devil, and that “the synchronization fee for the original soundtrack accounted to Romeo was a 25% share of $2,500”.
The lawsuit states that “The commercial release of the soundtrack took place in the USA (including a repressing), Canada, Germany, and Europe-wide but Romeo’s accounting from UMG Recordings for the original soundtrack appears only in one statement paying him 25% of $471.12. There is no detail of unit sales. This reporting is not commensurate with the scale, scope, and timespan of the commercial project. Upon information and belief, synchronization of a song should see an equal license fee for the recording and songwriting/publishing.”
The lawsuit further claimed, “As writer of Chase The Devil, Romeo would also have expected to see the license fees reflected in his publishing statements from Polygram Publishing. Neither the license of Chase The Devil in the GTASA game nor the original soundtrack is accounted to Romeo by Polygram Publishing.”
UMG and Polygram, represented by Pryor Cashman LLP, argued that many of Romeo’s accusations, which cover nearly 50 years, are time-barred in the state of New York in the request to dismiss the initial case filed earlier this year. They emphasized that there is a maximum six-year statute of limitations that applies to these claims.
They also argued that Romeo had not sufficiently pled any contractual breach because he had not specified the years in which royalty statements were missing, the years in which royalties were underpaid or not paid at all, the amounts allegedly owed, or how the accountings and payments fell short of the agreements’ requirements.
For each of the claimed contract breaches, Max Romeo, who announced his retirement from touring earlier this year, is requesting compensatory damages in the amount to be decided, but not less than US$7.5 million, as well as prejudgment interest, attorneys’ fees, and expenses.
He is requesting not just monetary compensation but also a full and correct accounting of his revenues as well as the cancellation of his recording and composition contracts. He would then be officially acknowledged as the proprietor of his 19 recordings.
Several performers, including Lil Wayne, Prodigy, the Allman Brothers, Eminem, and even the Bob Marley family, have previously sued Universal Music for unpaid royalties; the Bob Marley family’s lawsuit against the business was dismissed in 2010, according to Billboard.
