Spinal Tap star turns it up to 11 in fight for royalties
The artist’s law suit comes at a time of deepening suspicion of platform owners
There can only be one winner in the case of the actor Harry Shearer v Vivendi, the French media group, over royalties from the 1984 film, This is Spinal Tap. And it’s bad news, I’m afraid, for the French.
Mr Shearer, who plays pipe-smoking bassist Derek Smalls in the spoof rock documentary, alleges he earned $81 over 22 years on merchandising income and $98 between 1989 and 2006 for his contributions to This is Spinal Tap’s soundtrack, the rights to which are owned by Vivendi.
These sums seem, as noted by the film’s director Rob Reiner, “impossible” given its enduring popularity. They suggest the very worst of “Hollywood accounting” — that baffling process by which profits from successful movies somehow vanish long before they reach the accounts of their creators.
Mr Shearer is no starving artist. He can afford a legal fight, having made millions voicing 23 characters in The Simpsons. He wants $125m in damages. If I were Vincent Bolloré, Vivendi’s chairman and its major shareholder, I would be advising my lawyers to settle.
Mr Bolloré has the thick hide of a man who has found fortune in everything from west African trade to paper manufacturing to advertising. But never has he taken on a man loved by millions for playing the part of a demented rock star (one so desperate to advertise his virility that at airport security he is found to have a cucumber wrapped in tinfoil stuffed down his trousers).
Vivendi may have perfectly good legal reasons why This is Spinal Tap has yielded desultory returns for one of its stars. But it is absurd on the face of it that a film so influential, adored and quoted can have paid out so little. The court documents allege that the original production agreement called for Mr Shearer, Mr Reiner and co-stars Michael McKean and Christopher Guest to receive 40 per cent of net receipts.
Mr Shearer must feel like David St Hubbins, Spinal Tap’s lead singer, whose bandmate Nigel Tufnel designs a giant replica of Stonehenge to descend on stage, only to mislabel his sketch. The resulting monument is 18in high instead of 18ft. As St Hubbins complains, this tends to “understate the hugeness of the object”.
The original producer of This is Spinal Tap was the long-forgotten Embassy Pictures. Over time, Embassy’s catalogue of films was resold again and again until it reached Vivendi. In the process, Mr Shearer alleges in the court documents, This is Spinal Tap was bundled in with lossmaking flops for accounting purposes. This process of “cross-collaterisation” led to a dramatic understating of the hugeness of the film’s profits.
This process continued as the rights to the film were sold repeatedly as part of larger transactions before ending up with Vivendi. Mr Shearer claims that the accounting was fraudulent enough to justify the compensatory and punitive damages he is demanding.
The stories of suits roughing up talent in the music industry are legion. Colonel Tom Parker turned Elvis Presley from a dashing young GI into a Las Vegas freak show, but made millions along the way. The Rolling Stones spent years trying to get out of their contracts with former manager Allen Klein. A few months before he died, Prince compared record contracts to “slavery” and advised young artists against signing them.
Announcing his lawsuit, Mr Shearer said: “I think it’s important to challenge the status quo, not just for myself but for all my fellow artists, musicians and creators. After all, they depend for their livelihoods on a fair return for their hard work.” His suit will probably ripple beyond the world of music and film: it comes at a time of deepening suspicion of digital services and platform owners.
The EU and Google are locked in a fight over what can and cannot be uploaded to YouTube. The EU is asking for greater respect for copyright, while Google is standing by what it calls the “principles of linking, sharing and creativity on which the web’s success is built”. Facebook argues for similar principles as it ramps up its own video service. But, as you use either service, it’s hard to avoid a sense they consider content a source of advertising dollars and copyright something to be ignored until absolutely necessary.
Beyond content and copyright, new platforms in everything from apps to taxis to food delivery are provoking tussles over splitting the spoils. The platform owners are developing the kind of monopoly power once wielded by Hollywood studios and television networks — a lock on both the suppliers and consumers of their service.
When Mr Shearer talks about ensuring a “fair return for their hard work” he could be talking as easily about the gig economy workers who find their terms of work unexpectedly rewritten as about musicians feeding on scraps from their labels. They, too, are getting the Derek Smalls treatment.
A trial would be circus enough. But perhaps Mr Shearer could reunite Spinal Tap for a concert outside Vivendi’s chic headquarters on the Avenue de Friedland in Paris. A sea of seething spandex looping around the Arc de
Triomphe would do wonders to focus corporate minds.