In the latest example of musicians attempting to reclaim what they feel are unwarranted deductions against their royalties, rockers Incubus recently filed suit against Epic Records and their parent company, Sony Inc.

As Billboard recently reported, the band members are objecting to Sony's "common practice of deducting such costs as video production and packaging from the artists' cut,". These deductions prevent the band from making money from the sales of its recordings, effectively rendering them indentured servants to the label.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the "official" Incubus website at Sony makes no mention of the lawsuit. However, the more respected Incubus Online reports not only on the band's filing, but on Sony's subsequent countersuit.

Yup, countersuit. According to Dow Jones Newswire, Sony is claiming that the group owes them four more albums to satisfy the terms of their contract. To refute their claim, Incubus is relying on the same "seven-year statute" that Courtney Love cited in her effort to extricate Hole from their own contract.

This is the latest in a growing string of artists suing their labels to take greater control over their careers and catalogues. But where LeAnn Rimes and Dixie Chicks settled their suits out of court in a fairly swift fashion, it remains to be seen whether Incubus can be so easily swayed -- and how this may impact their plans to play this summer's Lollapalooza revival.

Very interesting...

I hate the singer for Incubus, but now I respect them for this. I'm not gonna download any of their songs, but I really admire what they have done.

Incubus is the biggest and most popular band that has gotten involved in this issue so far. Good for them!

wtf is the "seven year clause"? any links?
Hope this is a trend and not a fad
ttmmm

Sorry I didn't elaborate on that, Remye -- I was trying to keep the article as brief as possible. The state of California has a statute that limits the terms of a contract to seven years: it's designed to prevent people from entering into "lifetime" (or close to it) contracts that could keep them from earning bonuses, cost-of-living increases, etc. Only recently have musicians tried to apply that statute to their own contracts -- Courtney Love was, to my knowledge, the first. The labels' response has been that artists generally work at their own place, so it's no one's fault but their own if they are only able to complete, say, 3 albums instead of 5 in a seven-year period; the labels thus argue that the seven-year statute should not apply to artists who sign a deal that calls for multiple albums.