It’s not specifically digital in focus, but Spinal Tap star Harry Shearer’s fraud lawsuit against Vivendi and StudioCanal promises to be quite the show. Among his claims: the four co-creators have received just $98 in income from the soundtrack to This Is Spinal Tap in the past three decades, as well as just $81 in merchandising revenues. Vivendi subsidiary Universal Music has already been sucked in to the lawsuit too. “The accounting between the Vivendi subsidiaries is not at arm’s-length, is anti-competitive, and deprives the TIST creators of a fair reward for their services,” claims the lawsuit. “Particularly given that Vivendi has offset fraudulent accounting for revenues from music copyrights against equally dubious revenue streams for film and merchandising rights also controlled by Vivendi subsidiaries, Shearer is concurrently filing notices of copyright termination for publishing and recording rights in Spinal Tap songs he co-wrote and co-recorded, as well as in the film itself.” Vivendi has yet to comment.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: Wyng
Through Music Ally’s internal marketing campaign tracking, we’ve recently discovered an interesting website by the…