We'll let you know when the wave hits Melbourne.
By the time Love landed at the label, Geffen had already sold his company to MCA, which in turn was scooped up by Tokyo-based Matsushita Electric Industrial Inc. Shortly after Hole released its first album, Matsushita sold MCA to Canadian liquor giant Seagram Co. Seagram then devoured Dutch music behemoth PolyGram and folded Geffen into its Interscope division. Last year, the liquor giant was gobbled up by Vivendi, a French utilities and waste corporation.
That's a lot of passing around of rights. In the short time Hole has been around their music has been 'owned' by four or five companies.
Apparently Beck, Don Henley and Luther Vandross have sued for the same reasons but settled out of court for millions. Courtney is just pissed enough to go through with it, and with the money from her music career and all of Nirvana's money, she may just win.
Universal claim they pay so much in bringing an unknown artist to the top, they don't begin to make money for 7 years, hence, 7 year contracts.
Love says the company paid about $2 million in royalties and advances to her and her band--after deducting costs for studio recordings, video productions, radio promotions and tour campaigns during the course of the contract.
If the band paid all those costs, what exactly did Universal pay? CD production + marketing?
Please read this article, it's fantastic.