Royalty Reduction for English-Titled Songs Is Ruled Contract Breach

Jobim and de Moraes originally signed subpublishing agreements between 1962 and 1973 with Leeds Music Corp., Duchess Music Corp. and MCA Music Holland. (Both Jobim and de Moraes are now deceased.) The subpublishing agreements covered songs that Jobim and de Moraes wrote individually, as well as collaborations like “The Girl from Ipanema” and “How Insensitive.” The agreements gave the music publishers the right to create English-language versions of the compositions. Thus, Norman Gimbel was retained in 1963 to write English lyrics for four of the songs (including “Ipanema” and “Insensitive”) in exchange for a right to song royalties. To resolve subsequent royalty disputes, Gimbel entered into additional agreements with Universal in 1995 and 1999.

As a result of Gimbel's right to royalties, Universal reduced the mechanical and synchronization royalties it paid to Jobim's and de Moraes' heirs from 50% to 40%, for both English-lyric and English-titled song versions. (The Jobim and de Moraes interests had agreed to a reduction to 40% for English-lyrics versions.) Universal claimed it reduced the royalties in the same percentage because it couldn't distinguish between the two types of English language uses for royalty-accounting purposes.