Musicians Considered "Employees" For Tax Purposes

Matter of Columbia Artists Management LLC (Commissioner of Labor), 2013 NY Slip Op 06043 (3d Dep't Sep. 26, 2013).

A New York appellate court held that a music management company and tour promoter is liable for unemployment insurance contributions on its payments to musicians who perform on tour at the musical productions, even though the company considers the musicians "independent contractors."  Laborers/"loaders", however, are not considered employees.

New Suits Against Labels

Two suits were filed yesterday in SDNY against various record labels:

Grant v. Warner Music Group Corp. and Atlantic Recording Corp., No. 13-cv-4449 (alleging violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act concerning failure to pay employees minimum wages and overtime compensation).

Slip-N-Slide Records Inc. v. The Island Def Jam Music Group, No. 13-cv-4450 (seeking an accounting, declaratory judgment and claiming breach of fiduciary duty relating to defendant's agreement to manufacture and distribute sound recordings of plaintiff's artists).

Sony Loses Employment Suit Against EMI and Top Executive

Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. v. Werre, No. 601441/09 (Sup. Ct., N.Y. Co. Mar. 19, 2010)

Sony sued a top EMI executive for alleged breach of contract, and EMI for tortious interference with that contract. The Court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. (CPLR 3211(a)(7)). The Court found that the letter agreement at issue was not a binding, enforceable contract because a contingency, namely the executive's availability for employment on April 1, 2010, did not occur. Nor did the "prevention doctrine" apply because there was not binding contract in effect that contained the condition precedent in question; the contract was not binding on the parties until the condition precedent occurred such that the prevention doctrine did not apply. Similarly, since there was no valid contract, the tortious interference claim against EMI failed. Lastly, the fraud and breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims against the executive were dismissed as duplicative of the (failed) breach of contract claim.

Sony v Werre (NYS)