Pair who penned ’Eye Of The Tiger’ sue Sony

The founding members of Survivor are suing Sony over their 1982 blockbuster single Eye Of The Tiger.

According to Billboard, Frank Sullivan and James Peterick filed the suit in their hometown of Illinois, alleging the label owes them royalties equal to fifty percent of Sony’s net receipts from licensing of the Survivor Masters, specifically tied up in digital income.

The pair were met with what’s been dubbed a threatening response from Sony Music who warned the pair the “nuclear option” will be invoked if they choose to persist. The label has allegedly been treating digital downloads as sales of records, not licenses to unaffiliated third party download providers like iTunes.

An extract from the suit reads: “Indeed, a Sony representative threatened that in the event Survivor persisted in its objection, Sony would exercise what it termed ’the nuclear option’ – removal of the Survivor Masters from the songs licensed to iTunes for download by consumers, thereby wiping out that revenue stream altogether […] By threatening ’the nuclear option,’ Sony has conceded that its transaction with iTunes is a license subject to termination, and not a sale, of the Survivor Masters to iTunes. If it was a sale, Sony would have no right to demand return of the songs.”

Sullivan and Peterick also claim they are yet to receive any money after the label’s settlements with Napster, Grokster and Kaza, and that Sony stiffed them during promotion and marketing, charging them improperly and deducting costs from royalties.

As the music industry leans more and more toward online downloads, the classification of the term ‘sale’ has become blurred as we see an increase in legal action, predominantly in the US over record contracts that pre-date the launch of iTunes in 2003. Acts like the Counting Crows, Dixie Chicks and Weird Al Yankovic have all taken their respective labels to court over digital royalties and an effort to make the industry treat digital revenue as ’licensing’ or ’other’ income in their contracts.

Sullivan and Peterick seek similar damages; as well as compensation they have requested an injunction that stops Sony Music from taking back music from digital outlets.