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Bitesize Case Studies
André Rieu is one of the most successful classical musicians of the modern era. Known as the “King of the Waltz,” he has turned classical music into a global entertainment phenomenon, and his Johann Strauss Orchestra fills arenas normally reserved for pop and rock acts. Success on that scale brings legal responsibility. In 2015, concerts in Rieu’s home town of Maastricht led to a six figure fine from the Dutch authorities over child performers in a guest act. The case went all the way to the Netherlands’ highest administrative court, and its outcome turned on a question every touring production faces: who is the employer of the people on stage?
Blur are often assumed to have fought their record label in court, as George Michael and Prince did. There is no public record that they did. The legal case that carries their name was brought in 2001 by David and Helen Balfe, the founders of Blur’s first label, Food Records, against EMI. It turned on a single question that proved to be worth £250,000: which record counted as the second Blur album?
Few producers and rappers have had as much influence on hip hop as Dr Dre. From his early days with N.W.A. to his solo career and his role in launching artists like Snoop Dogg and Eminem, Dre helped define the sound of West Coast rap. Yet The Chronic, the album he made at Death Row Records, also gave him more than twenty years of legal disputes over who could sell it and who got paid. Two of those disputes ended very differently: in 2011 a written clause in his exit deal protected him, and in 2014 he lost a royalty claim partly because his original deal had never been written down.
In 2017 Ed Sheeran released Shape of You, which became one of the biggest selling singles of the streaming era and cemented his reputation as one of the world’s most successful contemporary songwriters. Yet behind the commercial triumph came a high profile legal dispute. In 2018 two songwriters, Sami Chokri (who performs as Sami Switch) and Ross O’Donoghue, said that Shape of You copied the hook of their 2015 track Oh Why. The dispute reached the High Court in London and became a defining moment in modern copyright law.
In the early 2000s, digital downloads were transforming the music industry. Apple’s iTunes Store launched in 2003, and fans could buy individual tracks legally for the first time. For artists and producers, one question followed: how should a download be paid? That question sat at the heart of a landmark case brought by FBT Productions, the company that discovered Eminem, against Aftermath Records and its parent, Universal Music Group. The dispute turned on whether downloads were “records sold” or “masters licensed”, two phrases written long before anyone imagined iTunes, and the answer decided which of two very different royalty rates applied.