Donald Glover in Money Dispute With Record Label (But No Lawsuit)

Contrary to previous reports, Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) is not being sued by his former label Glassnote Records, Billboard reports and a representative from the label has confirmed to Pitchfork. A TMZ report published on July 6 claimed that Glassnote had filed a suit over missing streaming royalties, but the label has clarified that it actually filed a complaint, requesting a judge mediate their contract dispute in court. A representative from Glassnote provided the following statement to Pitchfork:

Unfortunately the reporting by TMZ is not accurate. We are not claiming Donald Glover screwed us out of anything.

Donald Glover made a claim that he was owed 95% of SoundExchange royalties when we are legislatively and contractually required to share those royalties 50/45. When we tried to assert our position, he became strident. His lawyers sent a demand for $1.5mm and threatened a lawsuit on his behalf. We have simply asked the court to review the contract and to provide a declaration of relief that our position is correct pursuant to our contract and federal copyright law and that monies paid by SoundExchange to Glassnote can be retained by Glassnote, in the same way that monies paid by SoundExchange to Donald Glover can be retained by him.

I’d like to point out that in our 11 years of operating we have never been in litigation with an artist.

We are not asking for anything back from Donald Glover, just that we are able to retain the monies that are contractually and legally ours and that have already been paid to us.

According to Billboard, the dispute between Glover and Glassnote is over some of the digital royalties for the master recordings of the three albums he released on the label between 2011 and 2016 (Camp, Because the Internet, and “Awaken, My Love!”).

In January 2018, it was announced that Glover had signed a deal with RCA.

Pitchfork has reached out to Glover’s representatives for comment.