Icelene Jones, the widow of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, sued the rapper’s band, Wu-Tang Clan, on Tuesday, citing a decade’s worth of unpaid royalties, according to Variety. Jones is asking for at least $1 million, alleging that Wu-Tang Clan Productions paid no royalties to ODB’s estate from 2011 to July 2021. When royalties were paid out, it was only in the paltry sum (relatively speaking) of $130,000.
The basis for the suit is a 1992 recording agreement between ODB and Wu-Tang Clan Productions, which is owned and operated by Wu-Tang founder RZA, that promised 50% of net earnings on the publishing of his copyrighted songs as well as 50% of net earnings from the sound recordings — two very similar but slightly different subsets of income generated by artists’ music. Think of the first as all the money from the use of the songs in movies, TV shows, film trailers, and during sporting events, while the latter would be the actual sales of the songs via online and physical purchases, streaming, and radio play (not to mention, the auctioned, ultra-rare album, Once Upon A Time In Shaolin). The suit says that royalties from merchandise have been withheld, as well.
Although the estate has received some payments from Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. in 2019 and 2020, the suit alleges that this is well short of the royalties actually owned. The estate has requested accounting from the time period in question but says it has not received it in all this time.
