The Police, distributed by A&M Records, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Though their initial run lasted only from 1977 to 1984, the Police remain among the most iconic and successful bands in the history of rock. The London-based New Wave trio burned twice as bright in their seven-year ascent to global superstardom, landing unforgettable hits like “Roxanne,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and the record-breaking “Every Breath You Take” that have sustained their following and, in turn, their publishing income.

The Police’s catalog value returned the long-defunct band to the headlines two weeks ago, when news broke that guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland had sued frontman and bassist Sting for lost royalties. Per The Sun, Sting–legally Gordon Sumner–was named as a defendant alongside his publishing company, Magnetic Publishing Limited, in a High Court writ pursuing “substantial damages.” As court documents have been made public in the past week, new insights into the history of payment disputes within the band and the counter from Sting’s counsel have come to light.

Citing a document submitted by Sting’s legal team, a recent story from The New York Times traces agreements regarding songwriting royalties to the famously fractious band’s origins. Following their formation in 1977, Sting, Summers and Copeland verbally agreed that each would share 15% of the proceeds from the songs they had independently written with their bandmates, exempting some smaller use cases. A formal agreement was written in 1981 and revised in 1997, when Summers and Copeland first contended that their proper share had been withheld. The trio’s agreement was revised yet again in 2016, primarily in response to new income from their music’s inclusion in film and television.

Sting is credited as the sole songwriter for nearly all of the Police’s biggest hits. Most notable among these is “Every Breath You Take,” a song that simultaneously stands as the band’s lone #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, the US’s best-selling single of its release year, the fifth best-selling single of the ‘80s and, according to BMI, the most-played song in radio history. The track’s annual royalties to Sting–who sold his songwriting catalog to Universal Music Group for an estimated $300 million in 2022–are reportedly roughly £550,000. Music journalist David Hepworth has estimated that it accounts for something between a quarter and a third of his total publishing revenue.

The Police’s vocalist and bassist is credited with independently creating the track’s melody and deceptively sinister lyrics, but Summers added the instantly identifiable arpeggiated riff. Summers and Copeland’s suit asserts that the artists are owed “arranger’s fees” for this and similar contributions, heightened by the “digital exploitation” of the band’s discography. The artists argue that they are owed “in excess of $2 million” for these outstanding payments. Sting’s legal representatives slammed the filing as “an illegitimate attempt” to revise the 2016 agreement from Summers and Copeland, who may in fact have no claim to the band’s digital earnings and thus may have been “substantially overpaid.”

The Police’s bad blood runs deep. Read more on the band’s history of tension and Summers and Copeland’s initial filing here.