Victory Records Plans to Appeal the A Day to Remember Verdict
Last week, A Day to Remember won their long-standing lawsuit against Victory Records (mostly): a jury decided that prior recordings and live albums did indeed count towards fulfilling A Day To Remember’s five album deal with Victory, and that the band would retain publishing ownership of their songs while the label would keep the masters. Victory, meanwhile, was ordered to pay the band $4 million in unpaid royalties and withheld money from merchandise and digital download sales. And so it seemed that after five long years — yes, this all started back in 2011! — A Day to Remember had achieved, uh, victory over Victory. End of story. Right?
Not quite! Billboard reports that one of Victory’s attorneys, Robert Meloni of the firm Meloni & McCaffrey P.C., has announced plans to appeal at least part of the decision:
“Meloni, in a statement, points out that $2.8 million of the decision covers royalties and interest on those royalties, which the label owed A Day To Remember regardless since (among other reasons) Victory stopped paying out royalties in 2012 following what Victory construed as a breach of the merchandising clause of its contract. The other $1.2 million is related to a claim over incorrectly withheld reserves. Meloni says Victory has plans to appeal that part of the verdict.”
So, basically, Victory is looking to shave a little over a million dollars off the amount they now owe ADTR. The legal basis for their argument is complicated, but it basically boils down to capitalizing on one aspect of the trial that the label kinda-sorta won:
“In another dispute on merchandising, Victory withheld $100,000 when it claimed the band had breached the merchandising clause of its contract by selling directly to consumers through a website, when it only had the right to sell merchandise at its concert. The jury found that A Day To Remember was in breach by selling through the web channel, but there was no monetary judgement on the point — a hollow victory for the label.
“However, that phantom $100,000 seems to have been rolled into the unliquidated reserve issue, which resulted in the $1.2 million award that Victory’s lawyer said they would challenge.”
There are many, many more details of the trial and the initial agreement between Victory and A Day to Remember in the article. Regardless of what happens next, though, no one is disputing that Victory owes the band close to $3 million, which must make the band feel pretty darn good.
[via Lambgoat]
