According to a judgment filed Wednesday, there are more than $418,000 in outstanding royalties owed to the singer
Cher won her years-long copyright lawsuit against Sonny Bonno's widow over royalty payments from the Sonny & Cher catalog, a federal judge in the Central District of California ruled Wednesday.
The controversy surrounding Cher's suit goes back many years. When she and Sonny settled their divorce in 1978, it was determined that Cher was entitled to a 50% share of the Sonny & Cher publishing catalog. After Sonny's death in 1998, the heirs of Cher and Bono entered into a songwriting partnership. But in 2016, Mary Bono exercised the Copyright Act's “termination rights,” which allow songwriters or their heirs to regain control of their publishing rights in the US after 35 years. By 2021, Mary Bono claimed that through these termination rights she could stop paying royalties, and Cher subsequently sued.
In Wednesday's ruling, U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt ruled that Cher is entitled to those rights even with her termination rights exercised, upholding the temporary ruling that ended in February.
Sonny & Cher were active from the early '60s until their divorce, during which time Sonny Bono wrote several of the duo's biggest hits, including “I Got You Babe,” “Baby Don't Go” and “The Beat Goes On”. In 2015, Rolling rock He placed Sonny & Cher at number 18 on his list of the greatest duos of all time.
According to Wednesday's ruling, there are about $418,000 in royalties that would have been paid to Cher starting June 30, 2022. Reps for Cher and Mary Bono did not immediately respond. The Rolling Stones requests for comment
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