Johnny Gioeli suing Sega over Live & Learn

So SEGA has the rights to the lyrics, which Gioeli wrote, but Gioeli has the rights to the composition and the master recording, which by any measure of common sense should be in SEGA's hands?

Why are they like this

 

A classic Johnny Gioeli move.

To that fan who snitched on Sega: don't sweat it.

 

Seems weird that Sega wouldn't at least have the license to use the song in re-releases of SA2.

 

Gioeli says he was only aware that the song would be used in Sonic Adventure 2 — not elsewhere. He learned in 2024 through a fan, his lawyers write, that “Live and Learn” is used in lots of other places.

Incredibly hilarious that it took 23 years for someone to tell him that SA2 is not the only game that plays "Live and Learn".

Like, I didn't expect him to play the games too, but lmaoooo.

 

So the parts of the song that would make sense for Johnny to own (the lyrics and/or his vocal performance) are owned by Sega…
…white the parts that would make sense for Jun and/or Sega to own (song composition and master recording) are owned by Johnny?
What the what.

 

Right, a decade later. But in this case we have over two decades of him being left completely in the dark. Holy shit lmao.

Well, I guess 23 years is the maximum length something like this can go on. You think some other composers who worked on video games are gonna see this news report and have an "oh fuck" moment too? It's hilarious to imagine.

 

Should we make sure that one of our franchise's most famous songs is actually ours to use? Nah I'm sure it's fine.

Sega moment right there.

 

Hindsight's 20:20. Considering SA2 was meant to be the series' end, it's not that surprising they didn't bother to secure the rights to the song.

 

Whilst I'm not surprised to see the rights to Sonic music being contested by artists once again (I've genuinely lost count of the number of times this has happened), I don't buy for a second that Gioelli would have no idea about original SA2 version of the song being reused time and time again.

He's continued to work on Sonic soundtracks with Senoue as recently as TSR in 2019 and has appeared on-stage in an official capacity many times both before before and since that game. Yes, we know he cares very little for the franchise and has no interest in it so at best he's only going to vaguely aware of new games when he's commissioned. But this claim is a stretch and a half. Giving him as much BOTD as possible, the oldest game cited in the article is 2010's Yakuza 4. That's 14 years ago, but like I said before he's continued to partner with SEGA in that time.

It's probably likely that there is some merit to his claims about owning the original masters and he's not been correctly credited and/or compensated because SEGA have a truly awful track record with matters just like this. But he's clearly feigning ignorance for the benefit of his case and I hope he gets called out on it. And the reason he's bringing this case up now is probably because of the third movie and the use of Live and Learn in that. It feels very, very convenient.

And with this, you can guarantee that we'll never have a new Crush 40/Gioelli vocal track ever again. Shame.

It would be nice to see SEGA maintain a secure, indisputable hold on their IP and associated works for a change though holy fuck

 

This feels kind of unreal. I have absolutely no idea what to think here. On the one hand, it seems placidly absurd that Johnny would keep working on these games time and time again, including games with the song in it, while this was in conflict, and just not check them. On the other hand, it is absolutely on-brand for SEGA to have this kind of bullshit going on. I guess I'm glad that they've used and abused the damn Crush 40 songs so much that I'm not all that upset about them not recurring too much in the future.

I agree though, he's not going to be another Ken Penders. The Ken Penders of this case will be Ken Penders, who will almost certainly quote-tweet it with some declaration that it's exactly the same as his own bullshit, even though it obviously isn't.

 

Lmao. In that case, can someone please, please tell Johnny that SA1 is not the only game that uses "Open Your Heart"? I think he still might be completely unaware about that one too.

 

Bloody hell. It didn't even cross my mind that this potentially throws into question every other track he's produced for the franchise. Blimey.

 

It doesn't; it seems Live and Learn is special in that FOR SOME INCOMPREHENSIBLE REASON he arranged, recorded, edited and mastered Live and Learn WHILE NOT ONCE TALKING TO SEGA if not through Senoue. Which, if true, might just be more baffling than Gioeli never hearing about Live and Learn being used in other games after SA2 by orders of magnitude.

 

I don't think his other work are compromised considering this:

Plus we know Open Your Heart existed with Eizo Sakamoto and was even performed before Johnny came to the fold.

You know, I have the vague memory of Jun talking about the song and making a new mix where he talks about how the song came into being and the master recording. But I don't remember if it was an interview or in one of the soundtracks booklet.

But looking through it I did find this:

Sega.com February 27, 2002 interview

MelodicRock February 2004 interview

Going through some of these interviews makes me sad there's not a lot of these kind of interviews for the games that came afterwards.

 

Well, now we do know that those interviews didn't happen for newer games because he had no fucking clue his songs were being reused in them.