As Shearer fully appreciates, he and his bandmates may be the perfect plaintiffs for a case like this. Their original deal with Embassy dates from the period before the Buchwald suit motivated studios to find ways to make their contracts more lawsuit-proof, such as adding the mandatory arbitration and confidentiality clauses. The creators may qualify for copyright recapture, giving them even more leverage. And Shearer, at least, has a war chest filled with all that Simpsons money—and is famous enough to get lots of publicity and start shaming the studios right away. They’re not the first to go after Hollywood accounting, but they could be the loudest.

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