Last year, news broke out Dr. Dre is seeking around $3 million from Death Row Records for the material he worked on while he was part of the label – $1,200,386.57 in unpaid artist-producer royalties, $1,179,913 from digital sales and $676,444.44 for unpaid mechanical royalties. The digital sales amount is based on a judge’s suggestion after the Good Doctor lost a 2010 trademark infringement suit.
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruled that WIDEawke Death Row Records owes the legendary producer and co-founder of the label about $1.1 million, indeed, since the imprint does not have the right to profit from digital sales of Dr. Dre’s fundamental debut album The Chronic.
Death Row Records shall no longer sale the record digitally, Dr. Dre’s lawyer, Howard King, clarifies. If someone else is willing to retail the album on the web, the artist is still to be granted 100 percent of the proceeds from online sales.
For years, Death Row Records forgot about Dre when they continued to distribute his music digitally and combined his hits with weaker Death Row tracks in an attempt to elevate the stature of their other artists,” King wrote in a statement. “We are gratified that the federal court has unambiguously declared that Death Row has no right to engage in such tactics, and must hold all proceeds from these illicit distributions in trust for our client.”
