AceShowbiz - A backing vocalist on See You Again, the chart-topping track by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth from the *Furious 7* soundtrack, is taking legal action against Warner Music Group (WMG) and NBCUniversal. The artist alleges he has been “cheated out of royalty payments and downstream compensation” for several years.

Jake Broido filed a federal lawsuit on January 29, claiming he contributed gang vocals to the hit song, which underscored Paul Walker's poignant final scene in the 2015 film. The song dominated the Billboard Hot 100 for an impressive 12 weeks. However, Broido contends that WMG and NBCUniversal misclassified his role in the registration paperwork, resulting in the loss of royalties and licensing payments.

According to the complaint, “It is, of course, not surprising that Broido’s efforts to get paid have been, for a decade, obfuscated and obstructed by Warner. That is the long history of the music industry; to make executives rich at the expense of artists.”

Broido asserts that he was working at WMG as an administrative staff member when Charlie Puth approached him in early 2015 to request his assistance in recording gang vocals. This recording technique involves layering multiple voices to create a sound similar to crowd noise. With years of experience studying gang vocals, Broido eagerly joined Puth in the studio to record what would become part of See You Again.

Session vocalists like Broido are entitled to collect royalties through the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund. However, Broido’s name was excluded from the *See You Again* AFM Fund registration; instead, the paperwork listed “three A&R staffers” as the background singers.

Broido alleges that WMG, which owns the subsidiary Atlantic Records that released the *Furious 7* soundtrack, intentionally altered the AFM Fund paperwork. He claims this was because WMG had not secured a necessary work-for-hire agreement from him, and they wanted to cover up this “embarrassing failure” from their studio partners at NBCUniversal.

As a result of these actions, Broido contends that he missed out on essential royalties that should have been allocated to him by the AFM Fund. He also claims that WMG misclassified See You Again as “non-theatrical” on the registration paperwork, preventing him from engaging in potentially lucrative licensing negotiations.