Marty O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori, the original composers for Halo, are suing Microsoft over unpaid royalties that date back 20 years – and are now looking into blocking the launch of an upcoming Halo TV show.
Both O’Donnell and Salvatori have been involved in the lawsuit since June 2020. Mediation is set to begin next week, though the lawsuit will go to court if an agreement isn’t reached between Microsoft and the pair.
According to Eurogamer, both O’Donnell and Salvatori have instructed their lawyers to investigate issuing a preliminary injunction that would prevent the release of Paramount’s Halo TV show.
“Since we filed two years ago they’ve continued to ignore the terms. Now, they’re about to broadcast the Halo TV show and are using our monk chant (calling it the theme to Halo) to also advertise and solicit subscriptions for Paramount+,” O’Donnell told Eurogamer.
On the owed royalties, O’Donnell said that despite hiring lawyers and even being “physically in Microsoft”, the pair “could never get much clarity” on how much they were owed.
O’Donnell claims that the pair licensed the Halo music to Bungie, however Microsoft is looking for a declaration that the Halo music qualifies as work-for-hire, which in that case would list Microsoft as the author.
O’Donnell explained that he didn’t push the issue further while he worked within the company “because I wanted to keep my job”. Recently, however, the composers were angered by Microsoft when the company did not credit them in Halo Infinite.
As the lawsuit approaches mediation, O’Donnell said “we’re just trying to get them to do this thing that we thought everybody agreed to 20 years ago.”
Both parties will meet to agree on a date for the trial on May 9, 2022.
In other news, Lost Ark is adding more servers to reduce launch queues, as the MMO prepares to open its doors as free-to-play.
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