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Legal
Former Lady Gaga producer sued over her hits
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 17 June 2011
So, this is a bit complicated. The ex-boyfriend and one time producer of Lady Gaga who sued the singer claiming he was owed royalties from her debut album and other stuff, is now being sued by another producer who claims he is owed a share of any royalties owed to the ex-boyfriend. Keeping up?
As previously reported, Rob Fusari claimed he helped conceive the Gaga franchise, creating the look, coining the name, and writing and producing some of the early hits. He claimed that he and Gaga had formed a joint venture company in the early days in which he had a 20% stake, but that when she signed to Universal Music that enterprise was cut out of the equation.
Therefore, he said, while he was earning royalties as a co-producer on Gaga’s debut album ‘The Fame’, he was actually due a fifth of all the money she was making. That amounted to $35 million, he reckoned. Gaga’s people initially disputed Fusari’s claims, and questioned the legitimacy of the producer’s agreements with the pop star, but later they reached an undisclosed out of court settlement.
The new lawsuit has been filed by Calvin Gaines, who claims he worked with Fusari on a number of Gaga’s early hits, from which Fusari is now earning royalties, and that he is therefore due a share of that loot. According to the New York Post, Gaines is demanding a million dollars in his litigation. Fusari, for his part, has dismissed the other producer’s claims, telling the post Gaines “is trying to extort money out of me”.
