Rock band Lit filed a lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment on March 2, 2026, and now everyone is coming out of the woodwork with a “My Own Worst Enemy” reference. But the band’s big 1999 pop-punk hit is an important part of the lawsuit. The filing details breach of contract, withheld royalties, and mishandled payout formulas.
The band filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, claiming that Sony owes them at least $800,000 in streaming royalties. Allegedly, the music giant violated the original 1998 contract Lit signed with RCA Records before Sony bought it out.
According to a report from Digital Music News, Sony had been paying Lit royalties at a flat 14% rate. This went against the contract they signed, which outlined a Net Receipts format. Net Receipts puts streaming on the same level as sync licensing and other high-profile uses that generate more royalties.
Lit Lawsuit Outlines Sony Music’s Breach of Contract and Unfair Royalty Formulas
Lit’s audio streaming royalties were set at a flat 14%, despite conflicting terms in its contract. Meanwhile, they were also misled about their video streaming royalties. The lawsuit stated that Lit was paid a flat 17% of video streaming royalties. According to their contract, they should have been getting 50% per the Net Receipts formula.
Furthermore, Sony allegedly applied the wrong payout formula after their album A Place in the Sun was certified by the RIAA. It was first certified Gold in July 1999, then Platinum in October 1999. According to the lawsuit, the band’s royalty rate should have increased from 14% to 15%.
The certification snafu is just a smaller part of the bigger picture for Lit. Sony applied the incorrect royalty formulas to the band’s streaming figures, resulting in a breach of contract. But even if the flat rates were the correct formulas per Lit’s contract, they still should have increased when the album earned its certifications.
Lit has allegedly been trying to sort out its accounting discrepancies with Sony since 2023. They were in contact with the company for the next couple of years before Sony stopped replying to their legal team. The band also submitted a statement along with the filing. They claimed Sony acted “with full knowledge of the vast number of similarly situated artists materially impacted by [Sony’s] intentional breaches of its own contractual language.”
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