{"id":245862,"date":"2026-01-19T06:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T06:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/245862\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T06:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T06:06:08","slug":"sting-pays-former-police-bandmates-over-800000-in-royalties-amid-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/245862\/","title":{"rendered":"Sting pays former Police bandmates over $800,000 in royalties amid lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sting<\/a>\u00a0has\u00a0reportedly paid\u00a0his former\u00a0Police<\/a>\u00a0bandmates over $800,000 (\u00a3598,000) in royalties\u00a0since they filed a lawsuit in September.<\/p>\n

Guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland took the frontman\u00a0and his publishing company\u00a0to court in London for \u201csubstantial damages\u201d<\/a>\u00a0last\u00a0year, after years of legal disputes between the group.<\/p>\n

They claimed that Sting owed them between $2million (1.5million) and\u00a0$10.75million (\u00a38million) in unpaid royalties, and at a hearing in London\u2019s High Court on Wednesday (January 14), Summers and\u00a0Copeland<\/a>\u2019s lawyers said their claim could rise even higher, arguing that their \u201chistoric underpayment\u201d did not include interest.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0BBC<\/a>\u00a0have\u00a0reported that since the legal proceedings launched, the two musicians have received a payment of \u201cover $800,000\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sting denies that they are entitled to a portion of his income from streaming or download sales, arguing those formats should be categorised as \u201cpublic performance\u201d rather than sales.<\/p>\n

Copeland and Summers did not receive writing credits on The Police\u2019s hits, which include \u2018Every Breath You Take\u2019,\u00a0a song that\u00a0reportedly earns\u00a0Sting \u00a3550,000 in royalties per year alone.<\/p>\n

Even though they are not credited, they claim that they are\u00a0owed\u00a0\u201carranger\u2019s\u00a0fees\u201d from the \u201cdigital exploitation\u201d of the band\u2019s back catalogue.<\/p>\n

The band formed in\u00a01977\u00a0and Sting initially agreed to pay Summers and Copeland 15 per cent of \u201csome royalties\u201d from the songs he wrote for the group. Their agreement was revised\u00a0a number of\u00a0times, most recently in 2016, and Sting\u2019s lawyers now argue that his former bandmates\u2019 lawsuit is an \u201cillegitimate attempt\u201d to reinterpret that agreement.<\/p>\n

The Police\u00a0sold over 75million records worldwide, won six Grammys and two BRITs and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.<\/p>\n

They initially\u00a0split up in 1984, but\u00a0they\u00a0reunited on\u00a0numerous\u00a0occasions, with their most recent shows taking place in 2008, as part of a world tour that made them the highest-earning musicians in the world for\u00a0that year.<\/p>\n

Sting said in 2021 that he regretted reforming the trio in 2007,\u00a0calling the tour that followed \u201can exercise in nostalgia\u201d<\/a>. He explained at the time that he preferred being a solo artist due to the \u201ctotal freedom\u201d it offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a\u00a0power\u00a0thing, at all; it\u2019s just about producing exactly the brand and style of music that feels right for you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere,\u00a0Sting is set to play a Super Bowl spinoff concert in San Francisco on February 6<\/a>, two days before the main show in Santa Clara.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sting\u00a0has\u00a0reportedly paid\u00a0his former\u00a0Police\u00a0bandmates over $800,000 (\u00a3598,000) in royalties\u00a0since they filed a lawsuit in September. Guitarist Andy Summers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46,81525,1548],"class_list":{"0":"post-245862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-post-punk","13":"tag-rock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}