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‘This is Spinal Tap’ creators, UMG strike deal on soundtrack rights

By
Richard Morgan
Published Nov. 5, 2019, 10:02 p.m. ET

The creators of mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” have settled a contentious, 3-year-old legal battle with Universal Music Group in a deal that will eventually give the comedians back the rights to hilarious ditties such as “Sex Farm” and “Big Bottom.”

In announcing the agreement Tuesday, UMG said it would continue to distribute Spinal Tap’s recordings but that the rights for the film’s soundtrack would eventually revert to its creators, including “When Harry Met Sally” director Rob Reiner.

UMG declined to say when the rights will return to the creators — or whether they have agreed to fork over any money to settle the lawsuit, which accused the music giant of sharing a measly $98 in income from music sales between 1989 and 2006.

In addition to “This is Spinal Tap” — the soundtrack for the 1984 film following a fictional heavy metal band — the group released “Break Like the Wind” in 1992 and “Back from the Dead” in 2009.

Harry Shearer, who went on to become the voice of Mr. Burns and other characters on “The Simpsons,” launched the legal battle in 2016 when he filed a $125 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against UMG and StudioCanal.

Spinal Tap

Shearer’s suit claimed the companies — both units of Paris-based Vivendi — coughed up a measly $179 from both soundtrack music sales and worldwide merchandising income over 17 years, through 2006.

Other “Spinal Tap” co-creators, actors Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Reiner, joined the suit in February 2017, upping the damages to $400 million. In November 2018, the “Spinal Tap” plaintiffs and Vivendi agreed to put the suit on hold and try to work out their differences with a mediator.

Tuesday’s agreement leaves unresolved the “Spinal Tap” creators’ complaint against StudioCanal and Ron Halpern — a senior executive at the French studio.

The two Vivendi companies acquired rights to “Spinal Tap” after its original studio, Embassy Pictures, dissolved in 1986 and left a tangle of payment obligations.