A royalty collection firm that negotiated Doja Cat’s use of Dionne Warwick’s Walk On By is suing the latter singer, claiming she’s trying to cut off payments under agreements that entitled the company to “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars” in earnings.
Artists Rights Enforcement Corporation filed its complaint on Monday (December 15) in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging breach of contract and “unjust enrichment.”
The firm says it negotiated the 2023 sample deal that let Doja Cat use Warwick’s 1964 recording in Paint the Town Red. The complaint, which you can read here, stated: “Ms. Warwick profited enormously from Artists Rights’ work” in that sample deal.
The Doja Cat hit has to date amassed nearly 1.5 billion streams on Spotify, while the official music video for the song has been streamed over 377 million times on YouTube.
In the lawsuit, Artists Rights said it handled the sample licensing on Warwick’s behalf under a 2002 contract that gives the firm 50% of royalties recovered from her work as a Scepter Records artist. The firm said it has provided resources and assistance to Warwick for decades “at no cost to her so that she could obtain fair compensation for her vast body of work which she had not been receiving.”
The complaint noted that a month after signing their agreement in January 2002, Warwick sued Warner Bros., Warner Strategic Marketing and Warner Special Products, and Atlantic Recording Corporation, alleging the companies failed to pay royalties for master recordings and her 1974 hit Then Came You.
“After decades of service, Ms. Warwick is now trying to evade paying Artists Rights hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. In so doing, she has violated her contracts with Artists Rights.”
Artists Rights Enforcement’s complaint
After years of litigation paid for by Artists Rights, the parties reached a settlement in March 2004. One provision required record companies to send all future royalty statements and payments due Warwick to Artists Rights. The firm has received all royalty payments for distribution for over 20 years, according to the complaint.
But now, Warwick is allegedly attempting to terminate the decades-old agreement and has asked record labels to pay her directly instead of Artists Rights, the complaint said.
“After decades of service, Ms. Warwick is now trying to evade paying Artists Rights hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. In so doing, she has violated her contracts with Artists Rights,” the complaint stated.
Lawyers for Artists Rights wrote: “On information and belief, Ms. Warwick, either personally or through her counsel, has asked the Rhino, Sony and PPL to pay her instead of Artists Rights.” Rhino refers to Rhino Entertainment Company, a catalog division for Warner Music Group.
Artists Rights provided a timeline of additional work that it did for Warwick starting in 2017. That year, the company said it helped Warwick obtain royalty payments from digital performance rights organization SoundExchange under an agreement for a 25% share of the royalties recovered. Artists Rights later voluntarily stopped taking fees for that income at Warwick’s request, according to the complaint.
“On information and belief, Ms. Warwick, either personally or through her counsel, has asked the Rhino, Sony and PPL to pay her instead of Artists Rights.”
Artists Rights Enforcement’s complaint
Also in 2017, Warwick asked Artists Rights to determine why she was no longer receiving royalty statements from Arista Records. Artists Rights discovered her account with Arista owner Sony Music Entertainment had gone dormant due to an incorrect address and that Sony had been remitting payments directly to California because Warwick allegedly had not paid all her taxes.
Artists Rights said it got the tax lien lifted and payments reestablished, with Warwick agreeing to a 50% share of royalties recovered from Sony, the lawsuit said.
That same year, Artists Rights said it helped Warwick reestablish royalties from the UK’s PPL, with a reduced fee of 25%.
In 2021, Artists Rights secured another settlement for Warwick with Warner Music’s Rhino Entertainment over Scepter Masters recordings. The agreement also required statements and payments to be sent to Artists Rights.
In 2023 — the year when Artists Rights negotiated terms and payment for the Doja Cat sample from Walk On By used in Paint the Town Red — the firm addressed an international dispute over PPL royalties on Warwick’s behalf.
Artists Rights’ legal team wrote: “Despite the fact that Ms. Warwick’s royalty distribution from the aforementioned recording companies had increased approximately sixtyfold as a result of Artists Rights’ work, Ms. Warwick increasingly expressed her desire to stop paying Artists Rights.”
The company said it tried to “appease her” by agreeing, without consideration, to reduce a portion of her SAG-AFTRA union vocal consent fees by 10% if amounts collected exceeded $50,000.
Artists Rights claimed that its work for Warwick resulted in more than $2.5 million in revenue, including an average of over $350,000 annually over the past five years.
On September 16, Warwick’s counsel sent a letter to Artists Rights that appeared to unilaterally terminate the parties’ original contract and contend there were no other agreements between them.
Artists Rights is seeking a declaration that it remains entitled to ongoing payments of 25% from SoundExchange and PPL and 50% from all other entities. The firm also claims unjust enrichment, arguing it “expended great effort and cost to obtain settlements and payments” regarding Warwick’s royalties.
Warwick, aged 85, is known for hits including Walk On By, I Say a Little Prayer, That’s What Friends Are For, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again, and many more. She has won six Grammy Awards and has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Apollo Theater Walk of Fame.
She won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
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