Morrissey and Johnny Marr took 40% each of The Smiths' recording and performance royalties. Drummer Mike Joyce and bassist Andy Rourke got 10% each, and nobody ever put that split on paper. In 1996 a judge said Morrissey "appeared devious, truculent and unreliable." In the video below, Joyce is 40 years past the band and promoting his memoir. Asked if he would sit down for a pint with Morrissey and Marr now, he says, "No, I don't think so." The band never signed a partnership deal. Under Britain's Partnership Act of 1890, partners with nothing in writing share profits equally, so the High Court gave Joyce about £1 million in back royalties and 25% from then on. Morrissey appealed and lost in 1998. The case for Morrissey: he and Marr wrote every Smiths song, and the songwriting money was never part of the case. They ran the band, and Rourke had settled quickly in 1989 for £83,000 and his 10%. If you start something with friends and never sign who gets what, the law decides, and its default is equal shares. The person who wants the bigger cut is the one who needs the signature. So who built The Smiths' money, the 2 men who wrote the songs or the 4 who played them on every record? I post one famous deal like this every day, with who got paid, who got played, and the numbers that never made the poster.

Cadillac offered The Doors $15 million for one song in a car ad, and Ray Manzarek wanted to take it. John Densmore, the drummer, vetoed it, and Manzarek and Robby Krieger later countersued him for $40 million. In the end they paid $5 million to him and Jim Morrison's estate. In the video below Densmore explains where the veto came from. Morrison, who didn't play an instrument, told the band they would split all the money and each have a veto. When Buick wanted "Come on Buick, light my fire," Morrison offered to smash a Buick with a sledgehammer on TV. Cadillac started at $5 million for "Break On Through," then went to $10 million and $15 million. Densmore says he asked Krieger what he still needed to buy: "We all have a nice house and some groovy cars." Krieger stayed on the fence, and the veto stood. Then Densmore sued Manzarek and Krieger for touring with a new singer as The Doors of the 21st Century. In 2005 a Los Angeles judge agreed that any one member could block a band decision, banned the name and sent their tour profits to the partnership. The case for Manzarek and Krieger: they were the 2 still playing the songs every night, Krieger wrote most of "Light My Fire" himself, and one vote from a drummer who no longer toured cost every partner a share of $15 million. So was Densmore protecting what Jim Morrison wanted, or did one man's vote cost his bandmates millions? I post one famous deal like this every day, with who got paid, who got played, and the numbers that never made the poster.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley sold KISS in 2024, the name, the songs and the likeness, in a deal reported at more than $300 million. Peter Criss, the drummer who created the Catman face, turned down $1 million in 2001 for 8 shows in Japan and never wore it for them again. Eric Singer has played the drums in the Catman makeup ever since. In the video below, a fan asks why Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer still dress as the Catman and the Spaceman instead of creating their own characters. Stanley tells him to ask "the 35,000 people" outside. Singer, in Criss's makeup, adds: "The band in the past did try another makeup. Guess what? It didn't work." Criss left in 1980 and came back for the 1996 reunion on a salary, not as an owner. On the 2000 farewell tour he learned he was paid $10,000 a show less than Ace Frehley, and he painted a teardrop under his eye in protest. The case for Simmons and Stanley: they kept KISS going for 16 years without its original drummer, and they own the rights to the makeup. "The makeup is earned," Simmons has said. "Just being there at the beginning is not enough." Asked in the same clip about Gene the musician and Gene the businessman, Simmons answers: "It's all business." So did Simmons and Stanley earn the Catman face, or did they just keep the one thing Criss made himself? I post one famous deal like this every day, with who got paid, who got played, and the numbers that never made the poster.

Fleetwood Mac's 2018 tour averaged about $1.8 million a night without Lindsey Buckingham. Buckingham, who wrote "Go Your Own Way," says one phone call ended his 43 years in the band, and he sued for up to $14 million. The call came 2 days after a Grammy-week benefit show. In the video below he tells CBS the band's manager "was basically screaming at me on the phone," and said, "Stevie never wants to be on stage with you ever again." Buckingham says Stevie Nicks gave the band an ultimatum: either he went or she did. The complaint, he was told, was that he smirked behind her during her acceptance speech that night. The band hired 2 guitarists, Mike Campbell and Neil Finn, and went on the road. The case for Stevie Nicks: the band said the problem was the schedule, not a smirk. "One of the members did not want to go out on the road for a year." Buckingham says he had agreed to push back his own solo tour to join them. He sued in October 2018 and settled 2 months later. Nobody has said for how much. "I'm not out there trying to twist the knife," he says. If your income depends on a group, find out who can end it with one phone call, and get that in writing before the tour, not after. So was Stevie Nicks protecting the band, or did Fleetwood Mac drop the man who wrote "Go Your Own Way" over a smirk? I post one famous deal like this every day, with who got paid, who got played, and the numbers that never made the poster.

The Eagles have grossed $285.5 million from 58 nights at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and Hotel California opens the show. Don Felder, who wrote the music for that song, was fired in 2001 after 7 years of asking Don Henley and Glenn Frey to split the money equally again. He sued them for $50 million. Neither side has said what he got. In the video below, Dan Rather asks him what happened. Felder: "We shared equally in the gross and the tours and everything. But when we got back together, Don and Glenn felt that they should get a much larger share." The band was a company, Eagles Ltd. For the 1994 reunion, Felder agreed to the bigger split for 60 shows, after which they would renegotiate. The renegotiation never came. On the 2000 box set, which earned over $16 million, his lawsuit says the two of them took three times his share. The case for Henley: he and Frey started the band, wrote and sang most of its hits, and Henley wrote the words to Hotel California. Felder signed the new split himself and says he left with "a big war chest of money." If you take a smaller cut for a trial period, write down when the trial ends and which split comes back if nobody agrees. Felder says that when his 60 shows were up, the answer was no. Asked if he would do it differently, he says, "I don't have any regrets about the way I felt about it at the time." So did Henley and Frey earn the lion's share, or did they take it because nobody could stop them?

Sting collects a reported £550,000 a year from Every Breath You Take, a song only he is credited with writing. Since his old bandmates sued him in 2025, he has paid them more than £595,000 he admits they were owed. They say the full bill could pass £8 million. In the video below, Andy Summers is asked why Sting got all the writing credit for his guitar part. His answer: "That song was going in the trash until I played on it." In 1983 the band could not agree on how the song should sound, and it nearly missed the album. Summers says Sting told him to go in and "make it your own." He played the part in about one take. The song spent 8 weeks at No. 1 in America. The money ran on a deal from 1977, put on paper in 1981: whoever wrote a song gave the other two 15% of its publishing, called an arranger's fee. Sting's lawyers say it covers money "from the manufacture of records." A stream, they argue, is a performance, not a sale. The case for Sting: he wrote the words and the melody alone, nobody forced him to share 15%, and he has already paid what he admits he missed. If you split anything with partners, write down which money the split covers. The Police wrote theirs for vinyl, and nobody wrote down streaming. In the clip Summers jokes that it makes him "the most highly paid and the most played in the world." Then he adds: "My mother would be very proud." So should Sting pay his old band for every stream, or is 15% of a song he wrote alone already generous?

Ice Cube wrote many of the lyrics on Straight Outta Compton, an album that sold 3 million copies. On the 1989 tour he took home $23,000. N.W.A's manager, Jerry Heller, took $130,000. Then Heller brought a contract Cube's lawyer was never allowed to see. In the video below, Cube tells Shannon Sharpe what he tried next: "Just send it to my mama." The tour grossed about $650,000. Heller's cut was 20% of it, Cube's about 3.5%. Cube told SPIN in 1990 he had been advanced $32,700 in total and was owed at least $120,000 more. Heller flew in with the new contracts and $75,000 for everyone who signed. Cube's lawyer had one piece of advice, and Cube passed it to MC Ren: "Don't sign nothing." The case for Heller: Eazy-E's money started Ruthless Records, and Heller said Cube left out of jealousy of Eazy. Nobody forced Cube to turn down $75,000. Cube refused and walked out in December 1989. In the clip he calls it "the best move I ever did." His first solo album came out 5 months later. Did Jerry Heller underpay Ice Cube, or did Cube walk away from the deal that made him?