And Now, the Various Ways That Universal Music Screwed the Temptations…

Part of our ongoing series! In this week’s episode, the various ways in which Universal Music Group, through its Motown subsidiary, screwed the legendary soul singers the Temptations. 

 The details were offered up in a recent court filing in San Francisco, where the group is seeking to reclassify downloads as more lucrative ‘licenses’ instead of mere ‘sales’.  That reclassification is a controversial debate, though these other royalty ‘interpretations’ are probably not.

Here’s the rundown of allegations, based on the filing.

(1) Lawyers for the Temptations think, based on ‘information and belief,’ that Universal Music Group has received large advances from streaming music services like Spotify.  But they have not seen any portion of these advances, and are unsure how much they should be receiving (if they were to be receiving something).

(2) Universal also receives sales reports from stores like iTunes, but the Temptations have not seen these reports.  They know they exist through ‘information and belief,’ but not the actual reports themselves.

(3) Universal Music routinely undercounted the number of downloads and streams of Temptations songs, thereby lowering the royalty obligation.  The company used antiquated formulas for lowering sales counts based on the possibility of customer returns, which are essentially zero on digital platforms.

(4) Universal Music Group also deducted “container and packaging deductions” from digital transmissions.

(5) Universal Music also subtracted “audiophile deductions” from digital transactions.

(6) Universal Music Group placed a certain amount of the Temptations’ digital earnings into unspecified “reserves,” also in case of customer returns (which no longer exist).

(7) Universal also subtracts a “Net Sales Deduction” from Temptations download sales.

“Plaintiffs are informed and believe that, before violating its obligations to its royalty participants, UMG vetted the policies and practices at issue in this case at the highest corporate levels; that it commissioned, either on its own initiative or with the support of the [RIAA], so-called “white papers” on the issue; that it analyzed internally the financial consequences of its misconduct and cast it in terms of the additional profit to be made by avoiding its contractual obligations…”

Source: Digital Music news