Royalty Exchange, the broker/marketplace to connect owners of copyrights with private investors, is being sued by Ryan Stotland who invested $420,000 to take 100% ownership of the recording and publishing rights in five albums by rapper King Lil G.
Stotland is claiming breach of contract. According to financial documents ahead of the sale, the 68 tracks in question had generated $360,000 in digital royalties between the start of 2014 and July 2017. But Stotland had subsequently found out that King Lil G was filing a lawsuit against MIH Entertainment (his former label/publisher/management company) for, according to Billboard, “misappropriating his royalty revenue, sabotaging his catalog rights and failing to respond to his requests for accounting”.
In January this year, Stotland sued Royalty Exchange and MIH (as well as Michael Conner, its SVP of A&R and artist relations) for breach of contract, but Royalty Exchange moved to have this dismissed in March. However, the judge in the case denied the motion last week. “Nothing is more important to Royalty Exchange than meeting the needs of both buyers and sellers on our platform,” the company told Billboard in a statement. “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we believe there is no legitimate claim against Royalty Exchange, and are confident the issue will be resolved in our favor.” There are more – a lot more – moving parts to this story and Billboard goes into it all in exhaustive detail.
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