UNITED KINGDOM – JUNE 01: Photo of Andy SUMMERS and Stewart COPELAND and POLICE and STING; L-R: Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland, Sting – posed, group shot (Photo by John Rodgers/Redferns)
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Lawsuits are a constant feature in the music business landscape. The inflammatory issue of royalty payment equity among bandmates has once again moved into the foreground in 2025 with two cases involving major acts from the 1970s and 1980s: Supertramp and The Police. Publishing income sharing agreements exist among major acts in the music business, and platinum-level acts such as U2 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers built their careers by establishing royalty-sharing ground rules at an early stage, thereby avoiding costly litigation and personal conflict later on.
The Supertramp and Police lawsuits invite us to reassess the value of their recording catalogs and to consider the issues arising from these conflicts more than four decades after the commercial peaks of both groups.
Factors common to both disputes include:
• Agreements made in 1977 to ensure the financial survival of members less involved in songwriting who would not otherwise receive significant publishing income.
• Arguments that contractual terms were breached, with members interpreting the agreements differently or choosing to ignore their requirements.
• Major royalty income driven by major hit records in America in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
• Protracted and costly legal resolutions.
• Both bands coincidentally recording for A&M Records (acquired by Polygram in 1989, and now part of the Universal Music Group).
Supertramp’s Royalty Logic
A recent federal appeal court judgment pitting three members of British group Supertramp against their former lead singer Roger Hodgson (who left the band in 1983) reveals the positives and perils of sharing songwriting royalties. The August 20 ruling determined that Hodgson’s decision to halt royalty payments to three other band members in 2018 breached a 1977 agreement requiring him to maintain sharing songwriting royalties once Supertramp’s catalog continued to generate income.
Since their first commercially successful album, Crime of the Century, released in 1974, through to their 1979 quadruple platinum best seller, Breakfast in America, Hodgson and keyboardist Rick Davies (who died on Sept. 6, 2025 at age 81) shared the songwriting credits on each of the four LPs constituting the group’s peak era. Although Supertramp enjoyed six top twenty singles in America, success was merely moderate until 1979 when “The Logical Song” and its parent album invaded mainstream pop consciousness. As Billboard magazine notes, during the height of the group’s success, Hodgson and Davies were the only group members reaping publishing profits while the recording royalties and tour revenues were being used to pay off earlier advances from A&M Records.
CIRCA 1975: (L-R) Rick Davies, Dougie Thomson, John A. Helliwell, Roger Hodgson and Bob C. Benberg of the rock band “Supertramp” pose for a portrait sitting at a piano in circa 1975. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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Consequently, to maintain band harmony and relieve financial pressure, Hodgson and Davies agreed to reduce their royalty share, splitting their substantial publishing income between the other band members and the group’s manager. The songwriting pair were sued in 2021 for terminating the payments in 2018, and although Hodgson won a trial in 2024 (with Davies – who remained a member of the band – settling out of court in 2023), the new verdict means that the agreed revenue split must continue.
Prosecuting The Police
The latest judgment in the Supertramp saga roughly coincides with legal action over royalty payments taken by two members of superstar group, The Police, against their leader, Sting. In early September 2025, reports emerged from Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, and the BBC about the civil case filed in the British High Court. Police drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers allege that they were underpaid for their creative contributions to the group’s five major hit albums from 1977’s Outlandos D’Amour to 1984’s quintuple platinum Synchronicity.
However, the heart of the dispute revolves around a 1977 agreement that each member would share 15 per cent of their publishing earnings resulting from any song they had written, with the other members. The BBC report claims that a formal agreement (alleged by Summers to have previously existed as an oral pact) was made in 1981 and subsequently revised in 1996 and 2016. Summers and Copeland claim that they are due performance royalties for the public uses of the songs and mechanical royalties for the sale of music in physical and streaming recording forms. Conflict continues regarding the terms of the agreement and what money is owed to the respective parties. Sting’s total dominance as the group’s main songwriter, including their major hit singles, established a blueprint that remained in effect for the duration of their career, leaving little publishing revenue for Copeland and Summers.
Profits In The Material World
As a vitally important reflection of the value of Sting’s entire song catalog inclusive of his highly successful solo career, he sold his rights to the Universal Music Group in 2022 for an estimated $200 million, though some estimates exceed $300 million.
Despite personality friction within the reggae-assimilating band even after decades of inactivity as a unit, The Police successfully undertook a lucrative reunion world tour from 2007-2008 that reportedly earned the group over $360 million, becoming one of the highest grossing tours of all-time. They were the top popular music money makes of 2007, though many acts have since superseded those live income figures.
Although their punk rock-era 1979 debut album Outlandos D’Amour featuring the single “Roxanne” was not initially a major success, their aggressive low-budget touring strategy in America soon paid dividends as 1979’s Reggatta De Blanc and the 1980 follow-up, Zenyatta Mondatta established their chart credentials and began to generate notable royalty revenue.
Sting’s status as the main songwriting contributor continued on 1981’s Ghost in the Machine featuring “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and “Spirits in the Material World,” as the album became their fastest record to reach platinum certification in America.
The final Police studio album, Synchronicity (1983), produced their first chart-topping single with “Every Breath You Take” and its hit successors, “King of Pain” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” all written by Sting. The enduring success of the gold-certified “Every Breath You Take” that spent eight weeks at #1 in America has made it one of the most performed songs in popular music history, according to U.S. performing right organization, BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated). Apart from its significant royalty implications, the record has repeatedly heightened musical tensions within The Police. In recent years, guitarist Summers has emphasized his crucial role in creating memorable parts for the song that transformed it from an otherwise pedestrian piece.
Achieving multiplatinum certification in America after selling over 8 million copies and spending seventeen non-consecutive weeks at #1, Synchronicity left Sting with few creative or financial reasons to remain in the fragmenting band. His first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, was released in 1985, so Sting has enjoyed forty years of relative independence from The Police, although his live repertoire still incorporates rearrangements of songs they recorded, but which he composed. Copeland and Summers have each been active as individual recording artists and live performers, beginning even before the group’s official dissolution, but their music has targeted niche audiences, only achieving marginal sales.
Case Conclusions
Like the Supertramp scenario, the litigation involving the members of The Police is centered on a main songwriter or songwriters and alleged failure to fulfil the terms of existing royalty sharing agreements.
While the recently filed Police lawsuit against Sting awaits resolution in January 2026, the lack of clarity surrounding the alleged agreement terms underlines the critical need for crystal clear contractual arrangements specifying profit splits. In the Supertramp case, no such confusion existed, but the requirement of songwriting members to fulfil existing obligations had to be enforced in court.
Audiences often identify the creative core of a band with its songwriters or most visible performers who are often one and the same, but groups are organisms that rely on the positive interactions of the participants to achieve commercial results.
In both circumstances involving Supertramp and The Police, avoidable interpersonal and legal conflict has taken center stage decades after the opposing parties dissolved their professional relationships. Apart from demonstrating the potential longevity of litigation issues in the music business, both cases strongly emphasize the catalog value of legacy acts and the continual revenue streams that they generate.