CLEVELAND INTERNATIONAL RECORDS Man fights Sony over Meat Loaf's music

Steve Popovich says his company's label should have been on millions of records.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- For millions of music fans, Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" is an album full of melodramatic anthems that take them back to their youth.
For Steve Popovich, it's a symbol of Sony BMG Music Entertainment Inc.'s lack of respect for the contributions he made to their bottom line and musical history.
In 1998, Sony paid $6.7 million to Popovich and his former partners at Cleveland International Records to settle a lawsuit over royalties from the album, which at more than 30 million copies is among the best-selling records of all time.
Popovich and Sony are set to meet again in court next month to determine if Sony failed to put the logo from his company on millions of records that should have carried the Cleveland International stamp.
"I deeply resent the lack of respect for history," Popovich told Cleveland's The Plain Dealer for Sunday's editions. "I want something that my grandkids can say, 'Yeah, my grandfather did that.'"
Logo dispute
According to court documents on the latest case, Sony argues that Popovich, 62, is trying to milk more money out of them by trumping up the logo agreement. Besides, the company's lawyers contend, Sony has started putting the logo where Popovich wanted it, so the matter should be moot.
Popovich got his start unloading trucks at a Columbia Records warehouse in Cleveland, the city that years later would become home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
By the time he was 30, he was vice president for promotion at Columbia and helping make stars of Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Billboard Magazine named him the industry's top promotion executive for two years running.
Popovich became chief talent scout at Epic, which, like Columbia, was a CBS Records subsidiary. There he helped land topflight acts such as Michael Jackson, Boston, Ted Nugent and The Charlie Daniels Band.
In 1976, Popovich left to start his Cleveland International label, taking with him an agreement with CBS: He would point out new acts to CBS, and if the company opted to produce and market the music, it would do so with Cleveland International's logo.
"Keep your eye on Cleveland," CBS wrote in an ad at the time, according to court documents. "It's where the new breakouts are coming from."
Finding a star
In the six years Popovich ran Cleveland International, his biggest find was Meat Loaf. Popovich took the singer's tape when others didn't want it, and "Bat Out of Hell" went platinum in a rush, selling two million copies in a year.
Meat Loaf's follow-up albums faltered, though, and Popovich struggled to find another star. Cleveland International folded in 1982, and Popovich went to work for Polygram Records in Nashville, Tenn.
Popovich and Meat Loaf grew disgruntled with their royalty payments. An auditor hired by Popovich figured they were owed about $20 million, so in 1995 Popovich sued Sony, which had bought out CBS.
Meat Loaf sued Sony and Cleveland International, claiming Popovich's company failed to collect the singer's money from Sony.
Sony settled with Meat Loaf, giving him and his songwriter up to $9 million and signing the singer to a new recording contract in exchange for Meat Loaf's testimony against Popovich.
Sony eventually settled with Popovich, too, and agreed to start putting Cleveland International's logo on re-releases of "Bat Out of Hell" and other albums.
In 2002, Popovich sued again, claiming Sony had failed to live up its end of the logo agreement, costing him millions.
The case is scheduled for trial next month in Cleveland before U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr.