Just found out that Marty and Michael are both suing Microsoft for unpaid royalties with their music, specifically over Halo Infinite's use, and apparently they might cut the head off the Halo TV show before it even airs!

https://www.trueachievements.com/n48665/original-halo-composers-sue-microsoft-over-unpaid-royalties-could-also-block-...

I don't know how music rights work(Cruel, Xenos, mind shedding some light? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) but apparently this legal battle has been going on for Halo's entire lifetime. How did that happen?

What a surprise. Haven't ever seen that play out a million times.

Regardless of the settlement or whatever outcome of this cry for relevance is, Here's hoping Highwire's war propaganda bombs on arrival so the team can fall apart and Marty can fade away with this last of his bridges burned, so we don't have to have his narcissism tainting the gaming community/discourse anymore.

Just IMHO, of course.

Just found out that Marty and Michael are both suing Microsoft for unpaid royalties with their music, specifically over Halo Infinite's use, and apparently they might cut the head off the Halo TV show before it even airs!

https://www.trueachievements.com/n48665/original-halo-composers-sue-microsoft-over-unpaid-royalties-could-also-block-...

I don't know how music rights work(Cruel, Xenos, mind shedding some light? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) but apparently this legal battle has been going on for Halo's entire lifetime. How did that happen?

I know just enough about music licensing to know that it’s incredibly complex and tough to navigate. With something like Halo, where parts of the original score has been re-recorded, and then themes and portions of music from the original games have been worked into portions of new music in the new games, I can only begin to imagine what a quagmire all that would be. It depends on the terms of agreement when the ownership of Halo went from Bungie to Microsoft, which would have been informed by contracts involving the re-recording of Marty and Michael’s original music for Halo Anniversary and Master Chief Collection, which all would have been based on Marty and Michael’s original deals with Bungie…

I’ll say this though; it would not surprise me one bit of Microsoft, who would have had less experience in this realm than Marty and Michael, are in the wrong here. Not that they’d intentionally try to short change the original composers (although that’s certainly a possibility), but more likely they just didn’t understand all the layered ins and outs of music licensing. There’s ownership of the composition, ownership of the recording/performance itself, various forms of usage rights, all of which can be subdivided and conditional in a bunch of different ways.

I only hope that if you ever make anything as amazing and influential as the Halo soundtrack, only to see it popping up in a TV series 20 years later without getting paid or even credited, you don’t have people calling you a narcissistic boomer when you take it to court ;)

I only hope that if you ever make anything as amazing and influential as the Halo soundtrack, only to see it popping up in a TV series 20 years later without getting paid or even credited, you don’t have people calling you a narcissistic boomer when you take it to court ;)

Yeah. Someone has to get paid.

Either the artist, or the multibillion dollar company. Gee, I wonder which is preferable.

It's like when people got mad at Scarlett Johansson for suing Disney over Black Widow. "She's just a greedy millionaire". Uh, well if she doesn't get it, then the greedy BILLIONAIRES get it.

All you're (not YOU Cruel :-p ) really doing is siding with the man. If they have a case, then they'll get what is right. If they don't, they won't.

Also Korny, if you read the actual article, you'll see Mike and Marty have been asking MS about this for a decade, going and back and forth with their legal team. Going nowhere, this was their next step.

I expect there is a lot of Work for Hire and employee work product issues here too, but yeah all of this is useless speculation without seeing the contracts.

I expect there is a lot of Work for Hire and employee work product issues here too, but yeah all of this is useless speculation without seeing the contracts.

The article has relevant info.

O'Donnell and Salvatori dispute this. "It was never work-for-hire," O'Donnell said. "It was always a licence deal. So that's what we did with Halo. With the first Halo music ever, that was written and recorded in 1999 for the first time. It was licensed to Bungie. Bungie didn't get bought by Microsoft for over a year."

"That's when that first new contract came in, where we were like, 'Yes, we will sign over the publishing rights and the copyright on this music for Halo to Microsoft.' However, I wanted to do it the way it's done in movies and television, where the composers are still ASCAP composers, and it's not a pure work-for-hire. There is a contract for any ancillary royalties - so use in commercials, use in anything outside the game, specifically, or sales of soundtracks.

O'Donnell said he and Salvatori have received royalties from Microsoft on a quarterly basis over the years, but the payments were not connected to accounting that showed, for example, how many units were sold, or any deals done.

The ongoing lawsuit is, according to O'Donnell, currently about working out exactly how much money is potentially owed before settling on a dollar amount for damages. It is not, O'Donnell insisted, a claim of ownership over the Halo music.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-02-10-original-halo-music-composers-threaten-to-try-to-block-tv-show-amid-law...

I only hope that if you ever make anything as amazing and influential as the Halo soundtrack, only to see it popping up in a TV series 20 years later without getting paid or even credited, you don’t have people calling you a narcissistic boomer when you take it to court ;)

I mean, I'm probably the worst person to ask when it comes to commercializing/monetizing anything I make or create... I mean, Sammy literally woke me up some time ago to do a several-hour-long Quinceañera photoshoot for a complete stranger (one of her sister's church friends or something, I didn't ask, but Sammy's sister knows that I'm big on photography/editing). Quinceañera photoshoots, no joke, can run people well into the hundreds, and not only did I not charge anything, I offered to go up to another city to take pictures when the flowers start blooming later this year, because I know how important this event is for the kids, and I guess I just can't put greedy capitalism ahead of people.

Maybe I just have too much artistic integrity or something, and don't want to do something as scummy as trying to milk my passions for money, especially if I already got my check in the mail. But hey, everyone's got different standards, lol. :P

Irony, lol

But no, Marty's general narcissism comes from pretty much anytime he opens his mouth and whines about how he himself saved gaming, the economy, and all of the innocents in Fallujah. That's what I want us to be able to move past (and thankfully, less than one percent of his YT followers even listened to part one of his I'm The Real Victim Here podcast, so the stench only really seems to hit our corner of the community through his legal woes as opposed to any real following he has).

Still the G.O.A.T.

Marty Army 4 lyfe.

Maybe I just have too much artistic integrity or something, and don't want to do something as scummy as trying to milk my passions for money, especially if I already got my check in the mail.

Your quinceañera photo shoot didn't make a giant company even richer. Not even close to comparable. Come on man.

And if MS did in fact violate the agreement, there's nothing wrong with getting what was agreed upon.

Your quinceañera photo shoot didn't make a giant company even richer. Not even close to comparable. Come on man.

So we're tying artistic integrity to how much it makes a corporation that already paid us? Boy have I been looking at my hobbies wrong!

And if MS did in fact violate the agreement, there's nothing wrong with getting what was agreed upon.

I mean, yeah, if the legal terminology has nebulous stipulations and loopholes, then that's fine. It's why I said in my first post that there'll probably be a settlement or something. Never implied that he'd lose, or that he should lose. I just want this guy to shut up and quit dragging mud into the house. Not that I even have a horse in the "should Halo keep Marty's music as its foundation" race. I don't care.

Your quinceañera photo shoot didn't make a giant company even richer. Not even close to comparable. Come on man.

So we're tying artistic integrity to how much it makes a corporation that already paid us? Boy have I been looking at my hobbies wrong!

Guess Michelangelo had no artistic integrity since he was paid commission by the Pope, rather than painting out of the goodness of his heart.

Your quinceañera photo shoot didn't make a giant company even richer. Not even close to comparable. Come on man.

So we're tying artistic integrity to how much it makes a corporation that already paid us? Boy have I been looking at my hobbies wrong!

Guess Michelangelo had no artistic integrity since he was paid commission by the Pope, rather than painting out of the goodness of his heart.

His artistic integrity didn't come from what he was commissioned to do, IMO, but what he did to stick it to the guys who paid him.

I'm sure corporate entities are happy to have you simp this hard for them, Cody. I hope they see this, bro. :P

Your quinceañera photo shoot didn't make a giant company even richer. Not even close to comparable. Come on man.

So we're tying artistic integrity to how much it makes a corporation that already paid us? Boy have I been looking at my hobbies wrong!

Guess Michelangelo had no artistic integrity since he was paid commission by the Pope, rather than painting out of the goodness of his heart.

His artistic integrity didn't come from what he was commissioned to do, IMO, but what he did to stick it to the guys who paid him.

I'm sure corporate entities are happy to have you simp this hard for them, Cody. I hope they see this, bro. :P

You have it backwards. Being okay with companies taking advantage of artists is the simp move to use your terminology. Remember, someone gets the money.

You have it backwards. Being okay with companies taking advantage of artists is the simp move to use your terminology. Remember, someone gets the money.

Ah yes, it always comes back to money, doesn’t it?
Hmm.

I expect there is a lot of Work for Hire and employee work product issues here too, but yeah all of this is useless speculation without seeing the contracts.

The article has relevant info.

O'Donnell and Salvatori dispute this. "It was never work-for-hire," O'Donnell said. "It was always a licence deal. So that's what we did with Halo. With the first Halo music ever, that was written and recorded in 1999 for the first time. It was licensed to Bungie. Bungie didn't get bought by Microsoft for over a year."

"That's when that first new contract came in, where we were like, 'Yes, we will sign over the publishing rights and the copyright on this music for Halo to Microsoft.' However, I wanted to do it the way it's done in movies and television, where the composers are still ASCAP composers, and it's not a pure work-for-hire. There is a contract for any ancillary royalties - so use in commercials, use in anything outside the game, specifically, or sales of soundtracks.

O'Donnell said he and Salvatori have received royalties from Microsoft on a quarterly basis over the years, but the payments were not connected to accounting that showed, for example, how many units were sold, or any deals done.

The ongoing lawsuit is, according to O'Donnell, currently about working out exactly how much money is potentially owed before settling on a dollar amount for damages. It is not, O'Donnell insisted, a claim of ownership over the Halo music.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2022-02-10-original-halo-music-composers-threaten-to-try-to-block-tv-show-amid-law...

I have no idea what is true or not in this situation, but everything here strikes me as believable at the very least. Far as I know, most video game soundtracks are just considered part of the game like any other asset. Most people who write music for games don’t retain ownership of the recordings or retain ownership of the composer rights. But Marty and Michael being music industry guys would more than likely have approached a relationship with Bungie differently. Licensing their music to Bungie would absolutely have been the best thing for them to do. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Microsoft just assumed they were getting full ownership of the music, just like they did with all other game assets.

What I find surprising here is that this situation has taken until now to come to a head. Back when Halo CE Anniversary came out, and it included a re-recorded versions of the main Halo theme, I wondered at the time if Microsoft went to the trouble of doing that so they could have a recording of the Halo theme song that they owned. Music licensing and royalty fees often track ownership of the recording itself and composer credits separately. So every time one of my songs gets played on Spotify, I get a payment for being the songwriter and another payment for being the owner of that specific recording (fractions of a penny per play, but whatever). So I’d assumed using a new recording of the Halo theme would allow Microsoft to save some money… they’d still need to pay Marty and Michael some royalties as the original composers, but it would prevent the pair from “double dipping” and claiming royalties as the owners of the recording as well. But clearly this isn’t the case, if the article above is to be believed. This all sounds as if Microsoft has been acting like they straight up own the music this whole time, which is frankly crazy (certainly within the realm of possibility, but that depends of the details of contracts that none of us have access to).

Your quinceañera photo shoot didn't make a giant company even richer. Not even close to comparable. Come on man.

So we're tying artistic integrity to how much it makes a corporation that already paid us? Boy have I been looking at my hobbies wrong!

Guess Michelangelo had no artistic integrity since he was paid commission by the Pope, rather than painting out of the goodness of his heart.

His artistic integrity didn't come from what he was commissioned to do, IMO, but what he did to stick it to the guys who paid him.

I'm sure corporate entities are happy to have you simp this hard for them, Cody. I hope they see this, bro. :P

You have it backwards. Being okay with companies taking advantage of artists is the simp move to use your terminology. Remember, someone gets the money.

Even assuming Marty is owed money, the fact that this is one of many mud-dragging incidents continues to sully my appreciation for the work he's trying to get paid for, and makes me want 343i to move away from his music entirely. If this were the first such incident, I'd find it a bit rough that they're looking to block the entire TV series, but it's the fact that it's one of many that's really disappointing.

What I find surprising here is that this situation has taken until now to come to a head.

This is the part that gets me. "Why now?" is the question whose answer bothers me. Not the seeking to hash out what the number should actually be according to the contract, but why now?

Artistic integrity, I find, is mostly invoked by artists who make stuff that nobody is willing to pay for.

I never said anybody should do stuff for free.

To go back to Cody's example, how would history look back on Michelangelo if ten years after painting the Sistine, he spent another ten years standing outside of it yelling that he wanted to be paid more because he had used some of his own sketches as reference for the work he was commissioned to do, and demanding that the church paint over his work so that no person could see it otherwise if they didn't pay for every person that came in and looked up.

That said, Work for hire is one of those things that can feel crummy, and I do think that in itself is what companies use to make artists feel taken advantage of, but hey. If you got your check, can you really run around crying about it? Marty's just lucky that the terms of that specific contract had some weird and unclear language, so he and Salvatori might be looking at a loophole that can get them paid, but man. I just have no respect left for the guy at all if this is all it's coming down to.

To go back to Cody's example, how would history look back on Michelangelo if ten years after painting the Sistine, he spent another ten years standing outside of it yelling that he wanted to be paid more because he had used some of his own sketches as reference for the work he was commissioned to do, and demanding that the church paint over his work so that no person could see it otherwise if they didn't pay for every person that came in and looked up.

First of all, there's virtually no chance for an injunction against the TV show. Injunctions are only issued if there isn't any other legal remedy, and if the harm in not issuing an injunction is irreparable. Neither seems plausible. If Marty and Mike are owed royalties for the music used on the show, the remedy is to pay them after the fact what they are owed plus some damages. So it will premiere as scheduled.

It has nothing to do with sketches or reference work. Licensed music was in Halo 1. Copyright for said music was transferred to MS, and in that contract were provisions for ancillary royalties. Marty and Mike were paid, but the numbers didn't add up. MS refused to show them the numbers.

It would be like if the Pope and Michelangelo agreed he'd get a dollar for every person who comes and looks at the ceiling. He gets some money, but there are way too many people visiting for the number to be accurate. He asks the Pope "Show me the numbers of how many people visit here", and the Pope going "Nah man. Just trust me."

I just gotta say:

Mike feels disrespected.

I’d love to sit down over a beer with some of you here and look you in the eye - face to face.

Perhaps no longer being anonymous would temper some of the vitriol I see here against me.

I would calmly tell you our side of the story and put some of the misconceptions to rest.

Ignorance is never a good look for anyone.

- Marty

I never said anybody should do stuff for free.

To go back to Cody's example, how would history look back on Michelangelo if ten years after painting the Sistine, he spent another ten years standing outside of it yelling that he wanted to be paid more because he had used some of his own sketches as reference for the work he was commissioned to do, and demanding that the church paint over his work so that no person could see it otherwise if they didn't pay for every person that came in and looked up.

I never said anybody should do stuff for free.

To go back to Cody's example, how would history look back on Michelangelo if ten years after painting the Sistine, he spent another ten years standing outside of it yelling that he wanted to be paid more because he had used some of his own sketches as reference for the work he was commissioned to do, and demanding that the church paint over his work so that no person could see it otherwise if they didn't pay for every person that came in and looked up.

That said, Work for hire is one of those things that can feel crummy, and I do think that in itself is what companies use to make artists feel taken advantage of, but hey. If you got your check, can you really run around crying about it? Marty's just lucky that the terms of that specific contract had some weird and unclear language, so he and Salvatori might be looking at a loophole that can get them paid, but man. I just have no respect left for the guy at all if this is all it's coming down to.

Michelangelo did his work five hundred years ago, before mass media was a thing, before photography and printing and cheap ink made images so easy to reproduce. As soon as mass media became a developed market, the methods of paying artists for their work changed.

Don't compare Marty to Michelangelo, compare him to Mick Jagger or Stephen King. They get paid royalties on the work they produce, because the publisher can print out novels and albums for decades. Mick Jagger's music can also be licensed to other companies to sell cars and toothpaste, and Mick Jagger gets royalties on that use too. That's the way that the market works. You determine how much your work is worth by how much people are willing to pay for it, and you negotiate contracts that ensure you get paid for it. Otherwise, you're just leaving money on the table, and the big corporation is going to take it.

If the publisher violates that contract, you ask for that money back, because they're stealing it from you. It's theft, the same reason why it's called wage theft when your employer fudges the number of hours you worked in order to pay you less. And if you find that the company did this to you, you lawyer up and sue them for the lost royalties. That's how it's done.

It's why Alan Dean Foster sued Disney, because Disney stopped sending him royalty checks for the Star Wars novels he wrote and they're still selling. In fact, Eric Nylund mentioned that he hasn't gotten his royalty checks, so I hope he and Marty double-teams Microsoft's legal department.

That said, Work for hire is one of those things that can feel crummy, and I do think that in itself is what companies use to make artists feel taken advantage of, but hey. If you got your check, can you really run around crying about it?

You sure as Hell can if that check isn't what Microsoft promised in the contract. Or, in this case, if the paycheck isn't promised in the contract that Microsoft assumed when it purchased ownership of Bungie.

Marty's just lucky that the terms of that specific contract had some weird and unclear language, so he and Salvatori might be looking at a loophole that can get them paid, but man. I just have no respect left for the guy at all if this is all it's coming down to.

If that language is a license deal instead of a work-for-hire arrangement, it's not 'weird and unclear language'. In the article that was linked, Marty made some pretty specific claims as to what was in the contract he signed, and Microsoft hasn't upheld its end of the bargain.

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Good luck with the suit, there is really no denying how much of your work is in the Infinite soundtrack. Was watching a youtuber recently go through the first few levels and they thought you worked on it actually, or someone told to emulate you.

…have chosen to focus on assailing your character (rightly or wrongly, I’m not getting into that), but have failed to consider that there is a second plaintiff involved in this suit whose name isn’t Marty O’Donnell.

No matter what you guys may think about Marty, he’s not alone on this one.

It's why Alan Dean Foster sued Disney, because Disney stopped sending him royalty checks for the Star Wars novels he wrote and they're still selling. In fact, Eric Nylund mentioned that he hasn't gotten his royalty checks, so I hope he and Marty double-teams Microsoft's legal department.

This one absolutely shows that companies DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. Disney tried to argue that they only bought the part of the contract that lets them use the story, but not the part that obligates them to pay.

I've not heard many things more ridiculous.

And it reveals a lot about how people think.

I just gotta say:

Mike feels disrespected.

I’d love to sit down over a beer with some of you here and look you in the eye - face to face.

Perhaps no longer being anonymous would temper some of the vitriol I see here against me.

I would calmly tell you our side of the story and put some of the misconceptions to rest.

Ignorance is never a good look for anyone.

- Marty

Well said. May the whole of true objective truth prevail.

It is a shame you felt a need to make this post. These absolutes some of us cleave our fingers into, yes? Even then, there is always some exception.

Folks, it is possible to support an artist-or, not even so narrow... a persons work, with out supporting their full views built from their life experiences. Life is not some zero sum game, though we collectively sure do like to pretend enough don't we?

It is a shame that the style of thinking often seen on the net, the scorched earth, the hyperbole, has grown so real into the world... as the problem with scorched earth is that folks often end up burning themselves in the process. Often without even feeling it, which is the scary part frankly. Or maybe that's wrong, and that thinking has always been there and the net is the lens to such apocryphal thought.

In any event, it is a shame you felt a need to make this post. Don't feed the trolls Marty. Internet 101. But hey, since you made the offer, provided its done safely I might take that offer.

You're buying. ;D

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Given Marty’s most recent actions regarding Destiny’s music, is anyone convinced the dude understands music licensing or contract law?

Given Marty’s most recent actions regarding Destiny’s music, is anyone convinced the dude understands music licensing or contract law?

Um, yes?

Both he and Mike have made this their career for decades, and both have their own company for licensing their music. You think after all this time, neither knows what they are doing?

And as Coaxkez pointed out before, there are two people attached to this here. You think Mike doesn’t understand either?

Oh, so he just wants to follow the rules when it suits him, but ignore them when it doesn’t. I can pretend to be surprised if you want.

;p