{"id":1981241,"date":"2025-08-26T21:11:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T21:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1981241"},"modified":"2025-08-26T21:11:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T21:11:38","slug":"andy-summers-stewart-copeland-sue-sting-over-police-royalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/andy-summers-stewart-copeland-sue-sting-over-police-royalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland Sue Sting Over Police Royalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There\u2019s a distinct lack of synchronicity in the Police camp. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/tvandshowbiz\/36421649\/sting-sued-royalties-ex-bandmates-the-police\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Per U.K. reports;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Per U.K. reports<\/a>, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland are suing vocalist\/bassist Sting in London\u2019s High Court under the \u201cgeneral commercial contracts and arrangements\u201d category, claiming they are owed millions in royalties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The specific details of the filing have not been made public, but the case appears to include claims regarding the hit <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2024\/07\/every-police-album-ranked\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Synchronicity;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Synchronicity<\/a><\/em> single \u201cEvery Breath You Take,\u201d which was one of the most commercially successful and ubiquitous songs of the 1980s. Sting has been listed as the song\u2019s co-writer since its release, but Summers has long complained that he wrote its signature guitar figure and was never properly credited or compensated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">More from Spin:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sting is listed as a defendant in the filing under his real name, Gordon Sumner, as is his company Magnetic Publishing Limited. In a bizarre twist, Sting and Summers <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/06\/sting-andy-summers-christian-mcbride\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:appear togethe;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">appear togethe<\/a>r on a jazzy, updated version of the 1983 song \u201cMurder by Numbers\u201d from jazz star Christian McBride\u2019s <em>Without Further Ado, Vol. 1<\/em>, which will be released Friday (Aug. 29). Since the Police, who split for good in 1986, made no new music during their 2007-8 reunion tour or afterwards, the collaboration the first between members of the group since Sting played on Summers\u2019 1990 album\u00a0<em>Charming Snakes<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Meanwhile, this isn\u2019t the first time \u201cEvery Breath You Take\u201d has been at the center of controversy. In 2023, now-disgraced music mogul Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs said he still pays Sting $5,000 per day for the rest of his life for having utilized a sample of the song without first properly clearing it for use on his own 1997\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/tag\/notorious-big\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Notorious B.I.G.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Notorious B.I.G.<\/a>\u00a0tribute \u201cI\u2019ll Be Missing You.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Whether anyone actually believed the story is up for debate \u2014 if true, that amount would equate to a $1.825 million per year windfall for Sting and Sting alone, although other reports indicate that number is closer to $741,000 annually. Sting told\u00a0<em>Rolling Stone<\/em>\u00a0in 2003 that he was first alerted to the unauthorized Diddy sample by Elton John, who exclaimed to him, \u201cYou gotta hear it \u2014 you\u2019re gonna be a millionaire.\u201d The artist added, perhaps now regrettably, that he \u201cput a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds, and me and Diddy are good pals still.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:click here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a distinct lack of synchronicity in the Police camp. Per U.K. reports, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland are suing vocalist\/bassist Sting in London\u2019s High Court under the \u201cgeneral commercial contracts and arrangements\u201d category, claiming they are owed millions in royalties. The specific details of the filing have not been made public, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1981242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[355375,355377,355376,348945],"class_list":["post-1981241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-andy-summers","tag-police-camp","tag-stewart-copeland","tag-sting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Andy-Summers-Stewart-Copeland-Sue-Sting-Over-Police-Royalties.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1981242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}