Marty O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori, the original composers of Halo: Combat Evolved, have revealed to Eurogamer that they are suing Microsoft for more than 20 years of alleged unpaid royalties.
The two composers claim that they have constantly sought clarity from Microsoft on the matter of alleged unpaid royalties, and finally opted to file a lawsuit in 2020 when dealings with the company seemed to stall.
According to O’Donnell, he and Salvatori created the music for Halo: Combat Evolved, including the iconic theme song and licensed it to Bungie. Microsoft, who later bought the developer and tends to buy quite a lot of developers these days, allegedly claims that the game’s music was work-for-hire and that it is the actual author of the composition.
“It was never work-for-hire,” O’Donnell said. “It was always a license deal. So that’s what we did with Halo. With the first Halo music ever, that was written and recorded in 1999 for the first time. It was licensed to Bungie. Bungie didn’t get bought by Microsoft for over a year.”
To that end, part of the clarity that O’Donnell and Salvatori are seeking also includes data on how the royalties they have been paid stack up to sales of the Halo games and soundtracks. Beyond that, the pair also seem disgruntled for being erased from last year’s Halo Infinite. O’Donnell alleges that their music was rerecorded for Halo Infinite and neither of them was credited.
There is a date set for a mediation between the two parties next week, but should negotiations break down, the case could go to court. O’Donnell also revealed that he and Salvatori’s lawyers have been instructed to potentially seek an injunction that would block the release of the Halo television series coming to Paramount+ later this year, since the show also makes reference to music they composed.
“This Paramount thing just showed up on TV and Mike and I felt pretty disrespected,” O’Donnell explains via Eurogamer. “Having a connection to ancillary revenue from exploiting the original Halo music is exactly what this contract is all about.”
The pretrial conference between both parties is tentatively set for May 9, 2022.
Written by Moises Taveras on behalf of GLHF.
