Los Lobos | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Digitalmusicnews dot com. Los Lobos files dual lawsuits against Sony Music and Sony Pictures over alleged non payment of royalties from films. Now, I have not pre read this, but when you said this to me, when you mentioned that there was this news about Los Lobos, my first thought was LaBamba. Yeah, because that's what everyone thinks of. Of course, when you think of Los Lobos, you think of La Bamba. You think of not only the song obviously LaBamba, but the movie about Richie Valence. Because that's how Los Lobos in the eighties, that's how they became famous was because of that song.

0:36 Speaker 1: That's I mean, I don't know if they really even have any other mainstream Billboard Hot one hundred hit songs necessarily, but that's the one everybody thinks of.

0:47 Speaker 2: You want a quick perusal here, I'm not so sure. Oh yeah, no, it is in part the LaBamba soundtrack, Okay. But also it looks like there might have been a film done in Canada.

1:01 Speaker 3: I'm sorry, what.

1:01 Speaker 2: There might have been another film done in Canada? Song?

1:03 Speaker 1: Oh oh in Canada. Well, let's see again. This is from Digitalmusicnews dot com. Los Lobos sues Sony Music and Sony Pictures in two separate lawsuits alleging non payment of royalties for songs featured in the films LaBamba and Desperado.

1:20 Speaker 3: Oh that's right, Okay.

1:23 Speaker 1: Desperado with Antonio Benderas. That's a that's forgot about that. That's an underrated movie. That's a really good movie.

1:29 Speaker 2: I haven't watched that in a long time.

1:30 Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, that's really good.

1:33 Speaker 1: Los Angeles band Los Lobos issuing Sony Music and Sony Pictures for two separate instances, alleging the company underpaid streaming royalties for the group's recordings used in the nineteen eighty seven Richievallens biopic LaBamba and the nineteen to ninety five Antonio Banderas Western film Desperado. According to the lawsuit, which the band initially filed in California state court before Sony filed to move in to New York federal court, Sony owes a combined total of at least one point five million dollars in contractual damages.

2:09 Speaker 1: In both instances, Los Lobos accuses Sony of failing to pay royalties for the streaming use of their recordings in these two films in any country outside the US, and Canada.

2:21 Speaker 2: Okay, now, I get it.

2:24 Speaker 1: Specifically, the suit against Sony Music Entertainment focuses on unpaid royalties for the song. I don't, uh, Kencion.

2:35 Speaker 2: I feel like I'm going to murder it if I try to say.

2:38 Speaker 3: It, Kencion del Mariachi.

2:41 Speaker 2: You're probably closer than I would have said.

2:43 Speaker 1: Maybe featured in the movie Desperado. Los Lobos alleges that neither Sony nor its imprint Milan Records have paid any streaming royalties globally for the track's use Sucker, despite its recent surge and popularity as a war out anthem for Mma fighter Ilia l Mattador, Topouria.

3:06 Speaker 2: Dopouria that explains the resurgence.

3:10 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, in that instance, the band is seeking at least half a million dollars for alleged breach of contract and requests a formal accounting of damages owed.

3:23 Speaker 3: I need to gulp of my water here.

3:25 Speaker 2: I didn't think about those coming back for streaming, like when you first brought it up. I'm like, yeah, but this was back in the eighties, right.

3:33 Speaker 3: The thing is too.

3:35 Speaker 2: Now, I didn't think about the streaming aspect. Well.

3:37 Speaker 1: The thing is, when you think about in the music industry. When you think about how complicated it gets in terms of paying royalties for publishing and all of it, performance royalties, mechanical royalties, everything that goes into it. Then take that and compound it with how complicated it gets and how complicated it's always gotten. You talk about soundtracks for films, then it gets a whole new level of complicated and and that seems to have reared its head here. So the lawsuit says, quote, despite the specific knowledge that the popularity of the recording was spiking and reaching new audiences, Sony and its affiliate imprint Milan still paid nothing nothing to Los Lobos for streaming and continues to pay nothing for streaming anywhere in the world for any time period.

4:33 Speaker 2: Because some people lead by example. Yeah, we're just going to keep using it. We're gonna ignore you.

4:39 Speaker 3: Yep. I hate that.

4:42 Speaker 2: It's not like they they didn't give them anything, nothing that one dime.

4:46 Speaker 3: That's what they claim.

4:47 Speaker 1: Wrong.

4:48 Speaker 2: You would have this music without the artists.

4:51 Speaker 3: Right, says Los Lobos.

4:53 Speaker 1: Also sued Sony Pictures and its subsidiary, Columbia Pictures for allegedly unpaid royalties stemy from the LaBamba soundtrack which features several Los Lobos covers, including Richie Vallen's LaBamba. Their version spent several weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot one hundred. I think Los Lobos did the entire soundtrack.

5:13 Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken, I thought they did. Yeah, I think that's I'm I'm.

5:18 Speaker 2: Not surprised at all by any of this. No, not one iota.

5:26 Speaker 3: Nope, none of this is surprising. Nope.

5:30 Speaker 2: And you know what also complicates a lot of this too, is that each individual state has its own laws as far as like right of succession, somebody passes away who owns it right. So it gets even more convoluted when you look at the fact that not only is it so grotesquely full of crazy contracts whatever federal laws, but each individual state laws and where it signed matters.

6:00 Speaker 3: That is true, That is true.

6:02 Speaker 2: It kills me. The Lobama was so long ago that they'd have to fight for that money.

6:07 Speaker 3: It doesn't surprise me, though.

6:08 Speaker 2: It kills me. I didn't say surprised, right, as if it kills me, it's like a classic based on the true story.

6:16 Speaker 3: You know.

6:18 Speaker 2: Ah, that's just that's just so wrong. It's always the artist. It's always the artist that's getting ripped off by these companies.

6:25 Speaker 3: Yeah, well they're the ones who get paid last.

6:28 Speaker 2: Which is so wrong. They should be the ones paid first.

6:31 Speaker 3: You know, they're they're at the end of the they're at the end of the food chain.

6:35 Speaker 2: H