3LAU sued by former collaborator over $11 million NFT project

completemusicupdate.com:

An interesting lawsuit was filed last week against DJ and producer 3lau in a dispute over a mega-bucks NFT auction that he staged in early 2021 linked to his 2018 album ‘Ultraviolet’.3lau – real name Justin Blau – has been sued by Luna Aura, who co-wrote and appeared on ‘Walk Away’, a track that appeared on ‘Ultraviolet’.The producer’s NFT auction that coincided with the third anniversary of the record offered buyers various products and perks, all linked to his 2018 record, and some specifically to ‘Walk Away’.

The auction generated more than $11 million for the producer.In her lawsuit Luna Aura – real name Angela Anne Flores – says that, while Blau owns the copyright in the recording of ‘Walk Away’, she has a stake in the song copyright, and is also due an artist royalty under contract from the exploitation of the recording.

She then claims that Blau did not properly license the inclusion of ‘Walk Away’ in his NFT release and has not paid her a proper royalty.Blau did offer Flores a one-off payment of $25,000 in relation to the NFT sale, but she doesn’t consider that the be an appropriate fee given how much the wider NFT auction generated for the producer.It’s an interesting legal battle because, despite all the hype and chatter around music NFTs in the last couple of years, there remains no real consensus on how they should be licensed when recordings are part of the offer, but the artist or label leading on the NFT drop does not control all the rights in the songs contained in those recordings.

Which they frequently won’t.There are industry conventions for how revenues should be split between the recording rights and the song rights whenever recorded music is exploited, but those splits differ depending on the usage,.