‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ won two Grammy’s for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Record of the Year but loses out on $1 million in royalty money.
It is also the only Australian single to top the US Billboard charts and the highest selling single in Australian history, and garnered over $1 million in profits, but a royalties deal sees Gotye (whose real name is Wally DeBacker) having to split his profits all the way down in the middle.
In a deal made way before the song reached the success that it’s enjoying today, Gotye has agreed to split royalties 55/45 with the estate of the late South American musician Luiz Bonfa who, despite having died 10 years ago, received a co-writer credit on the tune. Bonfa’s 1967 song Seville consists of two notes, the D and C notes, played on a nylon-string at the start of Seville, which Gotye samples for his most well-known song.
The decision to split the profits would not have been considered bad at a time where Gotye was still an unknown, struggling artist. However, now with the unexpected international success of ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, the deal that Gotye made has come back to bite him.
New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based musician Kimbra, who collaborated with Gotye on the track, also reaps a percentage of the royalties. However, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) equally credits both Gotye and Bonfa as co-writers and supports the claim of the profits being evenly split.
Given that the APRA royalty of 8.9 per cent will be split evenly between both Gotye and the Bonfa estate, the latter would have collected more than $1 million so far, and counting, excluding revenue from streaming or its 500 million YouTube hits (each reaping a quarter of a cent) and radio airplay royalties which, over the next 50 years, are expected to bring in tens of millions of dollars.
Sorry Gotye, but it looks like you’re losing out on some money that you used to know.
Watch Gotye’s number one hit here.
