Uh oh – it was only a matter of time before cases like these started appearing in the new, complex world of music NFTs and crypto assets. In a complaint filed on Wednesday in New York federal court, Luna Aura says she has a 50% royalty stake in the song Walk Away from his album Ultraviolet — but that 3LAU (real name Justin Blau) offered her just $25,000 from the much-publicized NFT auction tied to the record.
Meanwhile, 3LAU took home $11.7M (!!!) “Despite this financial windfall, defendants only offered Luna Aura a flat one-time payment of twenty-five thousand dollars as compensation in connection with the sale of Ultraviolet and Walk Away NFTs,” her lawyers wrote. In a statement, 3LAU’s manager Andrew Goldstone strongly denied the allegations: “These claims are without merit, and we will vigorously defend the lawsuit that was just filed yesterday without any prior notice. There are no set standards for how to approach an NFT project like this, which involved much more than just the music. Justin’s team tried for months to reach a deal with Flores in good faith, but she stopped responding and instead chose to file a lawsuit.”
According to Aura’s lawsuit, the writer alleges that the DJ didn't share the profits with one of the key collaborators on the album. She says the auction was held without any notice to her, and that the sale breached her 2017 agreement with Blau, which guaranteed her a 50% publishing royalty on the song in question. How messy. It just goes to show how critical it is to lock in those splits – and across multiple formats too. We hate to say it but this is probably one of the first cases of many. Via Billboard