A bang as the release of the first episode of the Halo-inspired series approaches: the composers of the game’s soundtrack are threatening to sue Microsoft! Why ? Some copyrights on music composed for the license they would never have received.
The conflict opposes the composers Marty O’Donnell and his partner mike salvatori at Microsoft, the giant of the video game industry. It was in June 2020 that the two artists started legal proceedings, after, according to them, more than 10 years of negotiation attempts (without result) with the American multinational.
The problem being that each of the two parties claims that the musical rights to Halo belong to them. According to Microsoft, as O’Donnell worked for Bungie (therefore for them) and that the music was created during his contract, the rights are therefore part of the Work for Hire, ie copyrights created under an employment contract and therefore legally belonging to the employer. In this case, Microsoft would therefore be considered the author and owner of the famous rights to the famous Halo music.
However, the problem is that O’Donnell defends that the music was composed under a license fee, which would make him the author and owner of the copyrights. Thus was formed a judicial mishmash which today pushed O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori to claim, in court, the copyrights that Microsoft does not pay them because the company considers that it does not owe them.
Mediation is underway between the two parties, if no agreement is found, it is before a court that they will have to settle their affairs.
And the series in all this?
Another problem, a report of Eurogamer reports that O’Donnell is now considering asking his lawyers to investigate the possibility of obtaining an injunction in order to block tv series release Halo. Indeed, Paramount would have recently released a promotional video of the future production featuring people singing the well-known “Halo Theme Song”..
The two composers therefore seem well upset against all those who have used their music. We don’t know if the series will come out well. next March 24, as expected. At this time, a pre-trial conference is currently scheduled for May 9, 2022. To be continued…
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