{"id":4757,"date":"2025-08-26T20:52:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T20:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/police-members-royalty-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T20:52:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T20:52:03","slug":"police-members-royalty-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/police-members-royalty-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland Sue Sting Over Police Royalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-82225196-scaled.jpg\" width=\"1290\" height=\"998\" alt=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>There\u2019s a distinct lack of synchronicity in the Police camp. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/tvandshowbiz\/36421649\/sting-sued-royalties-ex-bandmates-the-police\/\" target=\"_blank\">Per U.K. reports<\/a>, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland are suing vocalist\/bassist Sting in London\u2019s High Court under the \u201cgeneral commercial contracts and arrangements\u201d category, claiming they are owed millions in royalties.<\/p>\n<p>The specific details of the filing have not been made public, but the case appears to include claims regarding the hit <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2024\/07\/every-police-album-ranked\/\">Synchronicity<\/a><\/em> single \u201cEvery Breath You Take,\u201d which was one of the most commercially successful and ubiquitous songs of the 1980s. Sting has been listed as the song\u2019s co-writer since its release, but Summers has long complained that he wrote its signature guitar figure and was never properly credited or compensated.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/close-but-no-cigar\/\">CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/mavis-staples-new-album\/\">Mavis Staples Makes \u2018Beautiful\u2019 Music With Star-Studded Cast<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/08\/crack-that-whip-new-documentary-explores-the-evolution-of-devo\/\">Crack That Whip: New Documentary Explores the Evolution of Devo\u00a0<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sting is listed as a defendant in the filing under his real name, Gordon Sumner, as is his company Magnetic Publishing Limited. In a bizarre twist, Sting and Summers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/sting-andy-summers-christian-mcbride\/\">appear togethe<\/a>r on a jazzy, updated version of the 1983 song \u201cMurder by Numbers\u201d from jazz star Christian McBride\u2019s <em>Without Further Ado, Vol. 1<\/em>, which will be released Friday (Aug. 29). Since the Police, who split for good in 1986, made no new music during their 2007-8 reunion tour or afterwards, the collaboration the first between members of the group since Sting played on Summers\u2019 1990 album\u00a0<em>Charming Snakes<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, this isn\u2019t the first time \u201cEvery Breath You Take\u201d has been at the center of controversy. In 2023, now-disgraced music mogul Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs said he still pays Sting $5,000 per day for the rest of his life for having utilized a sample of the song without first properly clearing it for use on his own 1997\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/tag\/notorious-big\">Notorious B.I.G.<\/a>\u00a0tribute \u201cI\u2019ll Be Missing You.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whether anyone actually believed the story is up for debate \u2014 if true, that amount would equate to a $1.825 million per year windfall for Sting and Sting alone, although other reports indicate that number is closer to $741,000 annually. Sting told\u00a0<em>Rolling Stone<\/em>\u00a0in 2003 that he was first alerted to the unauthorized Diddy sample by Elton John, who exclaimed to him, \u201cYou gotta hear it \u2014 you\u2019re gonna be a millionaire.\u201d The artist added, perhaps now regrettably, that he \u201cput a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds, and me and Diddy are good pals still.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a distinct lack of synchronicity in the Police camp. Per U.K. reports, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland are suing vocalist\/bassist Sting in London\u2019s High Court under the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3468,6,24,3469,3470],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andy-summers","category-news","category-pushly","category-stewart-copeland","category-the-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}