Marty O'Donnell and Mike Salvatore, who created the iconic Halo music used in the Bungee developed Halo games and more Halo products, claim Microsoft still owes them money relating to royalties dating back 20 years.
Lawyers representing the pair filed the lawsuit in a Washington state court in June 2020, and it has rumbled on ever since, with depositions and discovery undertaken. A date for mediation is set for next week, but if no agreement is reached, the dispute may go to court
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And in a recent development, O'Donnell and Salvatore have instructed their lawyers to explore the possibility of blocking the release of the upcoming TV show with a preliminary injunction.
O'Donnell and Salvatore are behind the creation of Halo's iconic soundtrack, used on a raft of Halo games and products. This includes the famous Halo "monk" chant, as well as the rousing DEM refrain Halo players know well.
Their lawsuit brought six causes of action against Microsoft: breach of contract; breach of fiduciary duty to develop the royalty income in a joint venture; breach of duty to act in good faith and fair dealing; failure to provide an accounting partnership; unjust enrichment; and tortious interference.
In a phone interview with Euro gamer, O'Donnell claimed he and Salvatore had tried to gain clarity from Microsoft for more than a decade on the alleged unpaid royalties, but finally decided to launch a lawsuit after failing to make progress with the company.
We just never seemed, through our attorneys and even when I was physically in Microsoft, I could never get much clarity on it," O'Donnell said.
Microsoft declined to comment when approached by Euro gamer. Paramount failed to respond in time for publication.
O'Donnell says he and Salvatori, trading as O'Donnell Salvatore Inc., created and licensed the Halo music to Bungee - a deal that remained in place even as the company was bought by Microsoft in 2000, ahead of the launch of Halo: Combat Evolved a year later.
Microsoft's counterclaim seeks a declaration that the Halo music qualifies as work-for-hire and as a result Microsoft qualifies as the author of that work.
O'Donnell and Salvatore dispute this. "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 Bungee. Bungee didn't get bought by Microsoft for over a year."
In May 2000, O'Donnell became a Bungee employee, working as the studio's audio director. Salvatore, however, remained independent, working at O'Donnell Salvatore Inc. O'Donnell also remained part of O'Donnell Salvatore Inc.
"But at the time, the Halo music, for this very nascent beginning thing called Halo, was still owned by O'Donnell Salvatore and licensed to Bungee," O'Donnell said.
Just 10 days after O'Donnell became a full-time Bungee employee, he became a full-time Microsoft employee when the company behind Xbox bought the company behind Halo. The composer claims contract problems began soon after.
"On day one of signing my employee contract, I wrote this addendum at the back where you're supposed to, and I said, by the way, the Halo music up to now is licensed, it's owned by O'Donnell Salvatore, Inc., and I'm an ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) composer. And that's the way it needs to be going forward.
And immediately, I was segregated out from all the other people, and I was shunted into a little room with Microsoft biz guys and attorneys or who knows what?, And they wanted me to explain what I was talking about.
And I told them, Look, what you bought was a license deal for this music. They never had an internal composer who wrote original music as an employee, so this was all new for them, too.
And so I was like, 'Hey, if you guys can't handle this, no harm, no foul, I'll go back to Chicago and, you know, maybe I can freelance this stuff. I didn't know. But they said, 'Okay, we'll let you do ASCAP music, and we'll deal with the license later on this music, because like, how much of this music is going to be used in Halo?
This is 2000, so it's more than a year before we released. And I remember saying, 'I have no idea, I don't know.' But if they made a mistake on that first initial conversation with me, it was that somebody should have said, 'Well, who's going to make the decision on how music is written and used in this game?' Because then I would have said, 'Well, that'll be my decision. I have a vested interest at this point to use this music for the game.'
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