Who was the first musician to sue their own record label?
The record label has always been a touchy subject for any musician to talk about. They may have ended up giving you life as a musician in the early days, but there’s a good chance those royalty checks lose their value when you read the fine print underneath everything. No one walks away with a good deal, and sometimes, the issues must be settled in court.
Then again, we’ve all heard stories about record labels suing the artist. Either they tried to be let out of their deal earlier than expected or, if they were Neil Young or John Fogerty, they got sued because they were making music that was too different or too similar to what they had done before.
The smart artists know how to fight back, and some of the biggest names in the world know how to take the thieves of the record industry to task for their actions. While they may have been the victims of a bad deal, many cases come down to people who were scoundrels from the beginning, usually looking to squeeze something out of their artists rather than foster their creativity.
The music business may seem like an industry that should cater to the creative side of writing, but just as many people are looking to make a cheap buck off of their biggest artists. But then again, why would people want to go to bat against the people who have given them the foundation to begin with?
But what do artists gain from suing their labels?
Usually, when artists try their hand at a label dispute, it comes down to money that hasn’t been paid to the artist. While most artists are more than happy to go to court for their music nowadays, the very first lawsuit by a musician came from Erroll Garner, a jazz pianist from the 1950s who suddenly saw his music being released without his permission.
Even though artists were treated like pigs for slaughter at the time, Garner, who wrote the jazz song ‘Misty’, was in a good enough position where he ended up walking away with the caveat that none of his songs would be released without his permission. Garner may have been the first to win a case, but other rock and rollers were in for a surprise when they read their contracts.
When trailblazers like Little Richard ended up renegotiating their contracts, they found out that they would be paid only a fraction of the price of classics like ‘Tutti Frutti’. Compared to artists who got into the medium for the love of the sport, this was now an all-out war, and artists would do everything they could to protect the rights to their songs.
How have artists benefited from suing their labels?
Although any lawsuit lobbied against a record label often feels like a David vs. Goliath story, a lot of the biggest names in the music industry have benefited from having their songs in their own hands. Despite being coaxed into signing a bad deal, the savvy artists of the world have found loopholes no one would have thought possible.
When Tom Petty sued his label for stealing his songs, his declaring bankruptcy became one of his greatest strengths, leading to him getting his publishing back and being given his own imprint on his label. That was just a minor gripe compared to what Prince did with his music, eventually freeing himself from his contract with Warner Bros and releasing a three-album set of music called Emancipation.
Though many lawsuits tend to get bogged down in copyright matters like the infamous ‘Blurred Lines’ lawsuit between Robin Thicke and Marvin Gaye, working around the labels has been doing wonders for Taylor Swift, who is still earning back every penny that she lost in her original deal by re-recording her albums. The labels may have been the head honchos of the music industry back then, but ever since Erroll Garner kicked down the door, artists have realised they have a lot more power than they thought.
