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Sugar Hill veterans sue Universal
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 9 January 2012
As one royalties dispute is settled another goes legal – well, you wouldn’t want Universal’s US lawyers to have nothing to do, would you?
The estate of the late Sugar Hill Records founder Sylvia Robinson, and some of the artists signed to her various ventures over the years, are suing the major claming they are owed royalties from the mid-1990s onwards.
Robinson’s son Joey is leading the new litigation, with members of the Sugar Hill Gang, one of the first commercial hip hop outfits which Robinson created, and members of Moments, an earlier pop creation of Robinson’s, also named as plaintiffs.
Universal Music acquired various catalogues originally owned by Robinson, including releases from both Sugar Hill Records and her earlier label All Platinum Inc, when the major bought Sanctuary Music in 2007. The current royalty dispute dates back to over decade before that acquisition though, from 1995 (which is before, I think, even Sanctuary controlled the catalogue). The lawsuit claims that Sanctuary and later Universal made “a substantial amount of money” from exploiting the recordings throughout the world, and “knowingly and wilfully” failed to account for or remit any royalties after 1995.
There have been various lawsuits over the years regarding the Sugar Hill and All Platinum Inc catalogues, and in 2008 former members of the Sugar Hill Gang sued the Robinsons over alleged unpaid royalties. The Robinsons themselves also spent much of the late 1980s in dispute with Universal forerunner MCA, arguably bringing to an end the Sugar Hill enterprise. Sylvia Robinson, of course, passed away last September.
Universal is yet to respond to the new lawsuit.
