Lit, the rock band behind the 1999 single My Own Worst Enemy, has settled its lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment over streaming royalties.
The band and the major reached a “settlement in principle,” according to a July 7 court filing reviewed by MBW.
Neither Lit nor Sony has disclosed the terms, and a written agreement is still being finalized.
US District Judge John P. Cronan closed the case on Tuesday (July 7) after being notified of the deal, which was first reported by Billboard.
The members of Lit sued Sony in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in March over their streaming royalties.
The complaint was brought by frontman A. Jay Popoff, guitarist Jeremy Popoff, bassist Kevin Baldes and the estate of late drummer Allen Shellenberger, as MBW reported at the time.
Sony, which acquired RCA Records years after the label signed the band in 1998, had been paying the musicians a 14% US royalty rate on streams.
The band argued the 1998 RCA contract entitled it to 50% of net receipts whenever a master is licensed, treating an on-demand stream as a ‘master use’ license rather than a sale.
In a parenthetical, the band’s 1998 contract gave an example of such a license: “RCA’s license to another person of the right to embody a master recording on a website in a so-called ‘streaming’ format, which is not subject to the ‘digital download’ of that master recording by a viewer.”
When the 1998 deal was signed, Napster had not yet launched, and streaming services such as Rhapsody did not arrive until the 2000s.
Lit claimed the language entitled it to more than USD $800,000 in underpaid streaming royalties.
“[Sony’s] failure and/or refusal to account properly to plaintiffs for streaming royalties received from licenses from third-party DSPs under the 1998 agreement has damaged plaintiffs in excess of $800,000 in underpaid royalties as reflected on royalty statements rendered from January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2026,” wrote the band’s attorney, Chris Vlahos, in the complaint.
The complaint also alleged that Sony used the wrong formula for video streaming royalties, and that it never applied the escalated rate its deal called for once A Place in the Sun reached gold and platinum status.
Reduced royalty reporting had also lowered the band’s pension contributions and affected its health insurance eligibility through SAG-AFTRA, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, the band had tried to renegotiate since 2023, but Sony offered “a half-hearted defense” of the rate before it stopped responding.
“This is something that we were hoping we could resolve before having to file a lawsuit,” Vlahos said in March.
A lawyer for Sony later said in a May court filing that the band had begun settlement talks after suing, according to Billboard.
MBW has reached out to Sony and Lit‘s management team at Shelter Music Group for comment.
The case landed as Sony faces other royalty claims in the same New York court.
Jermaine Dupri and his So So Def companies sued Sony for more than $18 million on Monday (July 6), alleging unpaid and underreported royalties on records by Kris Kross, Xscape, Usher and Mariah Carey.
That suit is active, and Sony has said the parties were attempting to resolve the accounting dispute before Dupri went to court.
Sony has settled similar claims before.
The company reached a settlement in 2018 with 19 Recordings – the label behind American Idol alumni including Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood – which had accused Sony of underpaying streaming royalties by accounting for streams as sales rather than licenses.
In 2020, Sony agreed to pay $12.7 million to settle a class action brought by the estate of 1950s singer Rick Nelson over royalties on foreign streaming revenue.
Such disputes have become more common as legacy artists challenge how labels calculate streaming royalties under contracts signed before Spotify.
Lit continues to tour, with dates booked across 2026.
My Own Worst Enemy has drawn more than 580 million streams on Spotify. According to the band’s complaint, it spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay chart.
The band’s 1999 album A Place in the Sun was certified platinum in the US.
Lit released its most recent studio album, Tastes Like Gold, in 2022.
The dismissal gives the parties 45 days to restore the case if the written settlement is not completed.Music Business Worldwide
