wrestling / News

Buff Bagwell & Raven File Amended WWE Lawsuit

May 22, 2017 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Buff Bagwell Image Credit: WWE

– Buff Bagwell and Scott “Raven” Levy have filed an amended version of their lawsuit against WWE over claims that WWE owes them royalties for the WWE Network. PWInsider reports that in the lawsuit, the two claim WWE breached their contracts by failing to pay direct sales royalties.

Raven says in the amended lawsuit that his WWE contract from June 2000 gives him a royalty from material featuring his work via a direct sale, which is defined as “…including without limitation, at the arena, via mail order sales or directly on television, or via the Internet.” It argues that WWE has direct sales of their content through subscriptions to the WWE Network but they have not paid royalties on them. He echoes Bagwell’s previous claims that the language of his contract stipulates that WWE would pay royalties on ““video cassettes, videodiscs, CD ROM, or other technology, including technology not yet created.” WWE has argued that there is no direct sale involved in subscriptions because there is no physical product being sold and instead merely a license to watch material on the WWE Network for the duration of the subscription. So essentially, Raven says that talent should be paid for the WWE Network under the same royalty rate that they would receive from PPV and video sales. Raven also says that the WCW and ECW video libraries should now fall under the promised royalty rate from his contract.

The lawsuit also argues that WWE has violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act “by failing to account for millions of dollars in owed WWE Network royalties and failed to pay royalties due within 90 days following the end of the quarter” and that the Network has licensed video material to other licensees without knowledge or permission from then, which they claim is a breach of contract in regard to loyalty payments. They say that they are filing as a class lawsuit on behalf of similar performers, arguing that the class is owed in the area of $5 million, and have requested a jury trial.

article topics :

Buff Bagwell, Raven, WWE, Jeremy Thomas