Dr. Dre Wins Lawsuit Against Death Row Records
After battling with Death Row Records over the past year over unpaid funds from the digital sales of The Chronic, Dr. Dre can put it all behind him as he has officially come out on top.
According to Billboard, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruled in favor of Dre, saying that he has been paid far less royalties from the online sales of his 1992 debut LP than he should have been receiving.
Dr. Dre's attorney, Howard King, told the Associated Press that the ruling, though it does not call for a collective halt of digital sales of the rapper and producer's music, does entitle him to receive 100 percent of the proceeds earned from digital online sales.
"For years, Death Row Records forgot about Dre when they continued to distribute his music digitally and combined his hits with weaker Death Row tracks in an attempt to evaluate the stature of their other artists," King wrote in a statement. "We are gratified that the federal court has unambiguously declared that Death Row has no right to engage in such tactics, and must hold all proceeds from these illicit distributions in trust for our client."
The "Let Me Ride" rapper and entrepreneur filed the lawsuit against WIDEawake/Death Row last year for carelessly selling and distributing The Chronic online and placing his music on compilation projects without consulting with him first. The new incarnation of Death Row Records can now only sell the album in the format it was in — cassette, CD, 8-track and vinyl — prior to Dr. Dre's exit in 1996.
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(Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
