Weird Al settles $5 million lawsuit against Sony

Back in March last year, popular comedic entertainer Weird Al Yankovic filed a lawsuit against Sony, seeking $5 million in damages. Reports this morning claim this suit has been settled out of court, although there is no mention of how much Yankovic will receive from the settlement.

Yankovic claimed remuneration for a number of breaches, including the mislabelling of digital downloads, with Yankovic being paid royalty rates of 15% instead of 50%, which would have netted him $1.5 million extra if paid correctly. He also claimed he is yet to be paid royalties for his music being on streaming services, and that he was underpaid publishing royalties and income from sync licensing, as well as being improperly charged for marketing costs of television specials.

Most interesting is his claim that he is owed a stake in Sony’s equity share of YouTube, which he says was only achieved by Weird Al’s videos giving Sony the necessary leverage to broker such a deal.

It will be interesting to see how much Yankovic receives, but the fact this was an out-of-court settlement rather than an official ruling means the actual amount is unlikely to surface.