Modular Label Boss Sued For Missing Tame Impala Money

The founder of Aussie independent record label Modular Recordings, Steve "Pav" Pavlovic, is being taken to court by the rights-management arm of international music megalith BMG over an alleged $US450,000 (about $588,000) or so in unpaid royalties for respected Aussie rock outfit Tame Impala. 

As The Australian's Ben Butler and Christine Lacey report, the Aussie indie, along with its co-owner, Universal Music Australia, has been accused by BMG of not only withholding the substantial royalty payments but ignoring legal advice to cease and desist selling operations with regard to Tame Impala's recordings in the lead-up to finally being served with papers filed with the New York Southern District Court early last month.

RELATED UPDATE: UMA Distance Themselves From Modular Founder Amid Tame Impala Royalty Saga

According to Butler and Lacey, BMG owns the rights to Tame Impala's songs, vis-a-vis its publishing agreement with songwriter Kevin Parker. Modular was given a "mechanical licence" to the songs in March last year, with the caveat that the label would pay royalties within a 45-day time-frame each quarter — which it is alleged never happened.

Parker himself alluded to a lack of payment for international sales during a recent Reddit AMA. In his words, as we reported at the time, and The Australian notes, "Up until recently, from all of Tame Impala's record sales outside of Australia I had received zero dollars. Someone high up spent the money before it got to me. I may never get that money."

Indeed, BMG's allegations against Modular, Universal Music Group, Universal Group and Universal Music Australia (plus 10 as-yet-unidentified defendants) are precisely that they haven't received any of the outstanding royalties, and that Modular continued to sell Tame Impala records such as the band's 2008 self-titled EP and full-lengths InnerSpeaker and Lonerism despite being issued with a cease-and-desist notice over its alleged violation of BMG's intellectual-property rights.

With the case now being lined up in New York to be heard by county judge Edgardo Ramos, Parker may finally see some overdue turnaround on his creative works — though it should be noted Modular is far from a lucrative prospect these days, despite once boasting an A-list roster filled out not just with Tame Impala but the likes of The Presets and Cut Copy too; as Butler and Lacey report, the company - which is co-run by Pavlovic and Universal Australia head George Ash - now has accumulated losses of $9.3 million, liabilities of $8.89 million, and assets of $5565. Modular's 2014 profit was reported to be about $436,000. 

Despite once boasting a robust artist roster that spanned genres and the country, the label has been reduced to a shell of its former self, despite being the namesake of the popular Modulations program — at which Grace Jones is crushing it — at Sydney's annual Vivid Festival, the 2011 iteration of which Pavlovic himself curated.

But it's been an unavoidable downward slide for the industry identity, who rose to prominence in the early 1990s as the man who brought Nirvana Down Under, before going on to bring to Australia acts such as Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and The Offspring; following his early success, though, as Butler and Lacey report, Pavlovic has faced setbacks with two failed tour companies, as well as with international concerns such as Croation festival For Music, which this year has been postponed until September from its original dates this month.

Meanwhile, most of Modular's high-profile bands and artists have moved on to other labels in recent times — Tame Impala are now with UMA directly, staying within the Universal group; band offshot Pond have taken up with EMI; RW Grace (formerly Grace Woodroofe) has moved to Liberation; Architecture In Helsinki dropped last year's NOW + 4EVA via Inertia imprint Casual Workout; and Wolfmother went the independent route, releasing their most recent album, New Crown, digitally on Bandcamp.