Song of the Day 1/16: The Police, “Can’t Stand Losing You”

Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, the two members of the Police who aren’t Sting, have taken the band’s songwriter and vocalist to court over royalties for their best-known song, “Every Breath You Take.”

As this article from the Guardian explains, Sting agreed in 2016 to give Summers and Copeland 15% of the royalties as an “arranger’s fee” – only fair in the case of Summers, whose guitar part is the only reason the song was included on “Synchronicity.”

But that agreement was drawn up before the streaming era, so income from services like Spotify is a gray area. Sting maintains that the law doesn’t cover such media; Summers and Copeland say it does. At issue is more than small change: “Every Breath You Take” has been streamed more than 3 billion times on Spotify. Summers and Copeland are asking for back payments totaling $2 million. Whatever the British courts rule will affect similar cases involving other artists.

“Can’t Stand Losing You” appeared on the band’s debut album, “Outlandos d’Amour.” As many people have pointed out, Sting repeats “I can’t stand losing” a lot more times than “you.” Issued as a single in 1978, it stalled outside the UK top 40, then reached No. 2 when it was re-released the next year.

The song generates additional royalties because it formed the basis for “I’ll Be Missing You,” the Diddy/Faith Evans tribute track for Notorious B.I.G. That track spent 11 weeks atop the Hot 100 in 1997. It did not go unnoticed by the members of the Police that what Diddy sampled was Summers’ guitar.