http://www.ilpost.it/2014/01/08/every-breath-you-take/
For those interested, I am passing along a piece by Andrea Monta that provides some additional elements regarding the copyright issue of Every Breath You Take
The article, although well-written and pompously written by an expert, contains several inaccuracies
Let's start with the key point at the end when he writes: “Sting had requested and obtained the totality of the earnings coming from the remix”
What does that mean? Master earnings or copyright earnings? (a quick search is enough to understand that it is copyright and not master)
For the record: Puffy's track is not a remix, but a new track, which contains, in addition to the Police track, two other "elements"; today one would call it a mash-up, in 1997 it was called a trick if not plagiarism (well.. many successful pop songs are stews with ingredients from many other successful songs)
[...]
Now let's get technical: Puffy's track contains only the chorus written by Sting, so it is correct that Sting (and only him as the sole author of the original) held part of the copyright and not the master since it was re-recorded, but to authorize the use, Sting demanded all the rights (to be clear 24/24), which is what they mean when they say having the upper hand.
As for the arrangement that made both songs famous, Police and Puffy, it would belong to Summers/Police (only those who hold the contract know what is truly written here). Since the base on which Puffy wrote the new song contains a sample of The Police, part of the master rights will have been paid by BadBoy (Puffy's label) to A&M (The Police's label) and therefore split as per the contract. If the track had not been sampled, but only the arrangement copied (as in some alternative versions of Puffy's track), Mr. Summers could have appealed by citing secondary copyright infringement which, among various cases, also includes plagiarism or copying an arrangement (even with different melody and/or lyrics).
[...] is NOT news.