There was a court ruling on WWE’s attempt to throw out the case Scott Levy (Raven) and Marcus Bagwell (Buff Bagwell) filed against WWE largely attempting to get residuals for appearances on the WWE Network. Bagwell’s contract is notable because when he was signed by WWF in 2001, it was to compete as part of a WCW brand and the contract called for talent to share five percent of the net receipts of all WCW PPV shows. They would also get five percent of net receipts of videotapes if they were the key person on the tape up to 150,000 units sold, or 10 percent if the total sales are greater than 150,000. WWE wanted the suit thrown out because the contracts in question were for WCW Inc., a branch of WWE, and they claim that company no longer exists. The plaintiffs argued that WWE owns WCW Inc. and Bagwell was getting royalties from WWE on his WCW work. WWE is now claiming the company of WCW Inc. Was the non-surviving corporation of a merger on August 30, 2011, or about a decade after WCW actually died, so that was probably a decision to create a legal merger and drop the company as a defense for future potential legal action. U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall ruled on 5/5 that WCW Inc., can no longer be sued, but ruled WWE still could be. WWE claimed that performers aren’t entitled to royalties from the network because the network is not a direct sale, and that royalties are paid out on things where they are direct sales like DVDs or PPVs. They claim the WWE Network is not a video product within the meaning of video product in the wrestlers’ contracts. The court ruled there was ambiguity in both sides arguments and thus didn’t throw that out and ruled that the WWE’s arguments “are not persuasive.” She also ruled against WWE’s arguments that the WWE Network is not a video product. The court even suggested a potential royalties pattern for talent based on network views, suggesting the five percent of net that had prior been given for PPV royalties should become five percent of the WWE Network net to be divided in a formula based on total number of videos viewed per month on the network and royalties paid based on that. Hall said she was not calculating that is the correct royalty obligation, but just offered a method t show WWE arguing it would have to be thrown out because you couldn’t do it to be not convincing. The WWE tried to argue that because Bagwell was under contract to WCW, Inc. (WWE’s corporation set up for WCW) and not WWE, that they had mistakenly paid him royalties in the past as he was never under a WWE contracts. Essentially, the case, minus a few claims, is going forward. An ending ruling that talent is entitled to WWE Network royalties would be a big one and at this point WWE’s argument against that wasn’t persuasive enough to eliminate the case.
