<\/p>\n
Sting\u2019s former Police bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland claim they are owed<\/a> more than $2 million in unpaid royalties, according to legal documents made public this week, The New York Times<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n Last month, reports emerged that Summers and Copeland had sued Sting<\/a> (real name Gordon Matthew Sumner) in London High Court, claiming they weren\u2019t properly compensated for their contributions to Police hits like \u201cEvery Breath You Take.\u201d<\/a> The newly-released documents shed light on the specifics of the complaint, with Summers and Copeland alleging that they\u2019re owed an \u201carranger\u2019s fee\u201d for royalties tied to the \u201cdigital exploitation\u201d of the Police\u2019s back catalog.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sting\u2019s lawyers have filed a response to the suit as well, claiming that the frontman has not skimped out on his old bandmates. His legal team called the lawsuit \u201can illegitimate attempt\u201d to reinterpret an agreement all three members of the Police signed in 2016 that was supposed to put an end to these arranger\u2019s fee disputes.<\/p>\n Reps for Copeland and Summers, as well as Sting, did not immediately return Rolling Stone\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n In a way, the legal dispute goes all the way back to 1977, when Copeland and Summers say the Police verbally agreed to a publishing split: It stipulated that whenever a member of the Police received income from a song they wrote for the band, they would share 15 percent of that income with the other two members. Sting, of course, was the band\u2019s primary songwriter and has sole writing credits on most of their biggest hits, like \u201cRoxanne,\u201d \u201cMessage in a Bottle,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Stand So Close to Me,\u201d and \u201cEvery Breath You Take.\u201d<\/p>\n Copeland and Summers go on to say that this verbal agreement was formalized and written down in 1981. In 1997, these documents were revised after the pair alleged that they had been underpaid \u201cfor a considerable period.\u201d In 2016, the latest agreement was signed, this time addressing how much Sting should pay his former bandmates when the Police\u2019s songs were featured in TV shows and movies.<\/p>\n What seems to be at the heart of this latest dispute is publishing royalties for digital exploitation, meaning online sales or streaming. While Copeland and Summers claim they haven\u2019t received their fair share, Sting\u2019s lawyers have countered that not only have they been properly compensated, but they might have been \u201csubstantially overpaid.\u201d They allege that, depending on how the 2016 agreement is interpreted, Sting may not technically have to pay his bandmates anything when the Police\u2019s music is played or sold online.<\/p>\n An administrative hearing for the case is scheduled to take place in January.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sting\u2019s former Police bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland claim they are owed more than $2 million in unpaid royalties, according to legal documents made public this week, The New York Times reports. Last month, reports emerged that Summers and Copeland had sued Sting (real name Gordon Matthew Sumner) in London High Court, claiming they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1999830,"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":[25173],"tags":[355375,363199,356804,314737,355376,348945],"class_list":["post-1999829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-andy-summers","tag-digital-exploitation","tag-gordon-matthew-sumner","tag-rolling-stone","tag-stewart-copeland","tag-sting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Stings-Police-Bandmates-Claim-He-Owes-Them-Over-2-Million.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999829","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=1999829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1999830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1999829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1999829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1999829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}