MEAT LOAF - SONY TOLD TO PAY LABEL $5 MILLION OVER MEAT LOAF LOGO OMISSION

SONY TOLD TO PAY LABEL $5 MILLION OVER MEAT LOAF LOGO OMISSION

Entertainment giant Sony Music must pay a small record company $5 million (GBP2.5 million) for failing to put the firm's logo on reissues of MEAT LOAF's BAT OUT OF HELL album. In 1998, a court settlement ordered Sony to place Cleveland International's logo on future copies of the 1977 disc, which has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Sony failed to do so for more than a year afterwards, leading to Friday's (23Nov07) ruling in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cleveland International founder Steve Popovich, who signed the then-unknown Meat Loaf in 1977, says, "I worked too hard for them and made them too much money to get robbed now." Sony had originally argued that Popovich had made up the logo agreement. The company then claimed the logo was omitted from subsequent pressings due to a mistake that was immediately corrected when realised.