What should have been a celebratory moment for Dionne Warwick and her legacy has instead turned into a courtroom fight.
According to Digital Music News, the renewed spotlight on her classic song “Walk On By,” fueled by its prominent use in Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red,” has triggered a lawsuit from a company that claims it played a critical role in making that success possible. Artists Rights Enforcement Corp. filed suit on Monday, December 15, accusing Warwick of attempting to cut ties with the firm after years of representation.
The company says it handled complex royalty enforcement matters on her behalf without charging upfront fees, only to now be pushed aside after the work paid off.
“After decades of service, Ms. Warwick is now trying to evade paying Artists Rights hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars,” attorneys for the company stated. “In so doing, she has violated her contracts with Artists Rights.”
At the center of the dispute is an agreement dating back to 2002.
According to the complaint, Warwick authorized Artists Rights to pursue unpaid royalties and resolve rights conflicts connected to her catalog. In exchange, the company claims it was promised 50% of any money recovered, with the agreement continuing indefinitely. Artists Rights says it covered all legal and administrative costs while taking on the financial risk. The lawsuit describes a business model commonly used in the music industry, particularly for veteran artists navigating decades of overlapping contracts. Rather than charging hourly fees, companies accept the risk in hopes of sharing in future recoveries.
Artists Rights says the strategy produced major results. The filing claims the firm helped generate more than $2.5 million for Warwick and significantly increased the royalties she received from her record labels. Despite that, the company alleges Warwick later made clear she wanted out of the arrangement, with her attorneys moving to terminate the agreement in September.
“Artists Rights has performed all of its obligations under the contracts,” the lawsuit asserts. “Ms. Warwick has wrongfully and unreasonably repudiated the contracts.”
The complaint details several high stakes matters the firm says it resolved, including a lawsuit against Atlantic Records over royalties from Warwick’s 1974 hit “Then Came You.” That case settled in 2004, and the settlement allegedly required future royalty payments to be processed through Artists Rights.
Beyond that, the company claims it handled royalty issues with SoundExchange and addressed a situation in which Sony Music redirected Warwick’s royalties to the state of California to satisfy outstanding tax liabilities.
The most recent effort involved clearing the “Walk On By” sample used in “Paint the Town Red,” a record that dominated the charts with 3 weeks at No. 1 and a total of 37 weeks on the Hot 100.
The lawsuit does not accuse Doja Cat, Atlantic Records, or any other parties involved in the song’s release of wrongdoing.
