Jared Leto responded Monday to Virgin Records' $30 million lawsuit against his band 30 Seconds to Mars, invoking a labor clause that relates to actors that Courtney Love used when trying to separate Hole from the clutches of Universal Music Group.
Leto says a key reason the band has left EMI is the new regime and their pinkslipping of 2,000 employees.
"It is hardly the same company we have known," Leto wrote. "After more than five regime changes in nine years you'd think we would be used to the inconsistency, but the team that took the journey together for 'A Beautiful Lie' was a very very special group of people and it's a huge loss that so many of them are gone."
Saying 30 Seconds to Mars is not calling it quits, Leto noted "we are having one of the most inspiring, wonderful and exciting times that we've experienced to date."
He called the lawsuit amount "ridiculously oversized, totally unrealistic and pretty silly (but slightly clever)."
He writes:
"We had been signed to our record contract for 9 years. Basically, under California law, where we live and signed our deal, one cannot be bound to a contract for more than 7 years. This is widely known by all the record companies and has been for years. In fact, so aware of it are they that they desperately try to make deals outside of California whenever possible. It is a law that protects people from lengthy, unfair, career-spanning contracts. This law also gave us the legal right to explore other possible opportunities.
"Yes we have been sued by EMI. But NOT for failing to deliver music or for 'quitting'. We have been sued by the corporation quite simply because roughly 45 days ago we exercised our legal right to terminate our old, out of date contract, which, according to the law is null and void.
"We terminated for a number of reasons, which we won't go into here (we'd rather not air any dirty laundry) but basically our representatives could not get EMI to agree to make a fair and reasonable deal."
The rest of Leto's note follows.

Two former members of the Smashing Pumpkins have sued Virgin Records saying their never gave permission to the company to distribute their work digitally and that they have never been compensated for sales to date.
James Iha and Darcy Wretzky filed a lawsuit Thursday in California Supreme Court asking to be compensated for all money generated from various digital deals in addition to damages.
Iha, one of the band's guitarists, and bassist Wretzky allege that when Virgin sought the band's permission to supply digital versions of the Smashing Pumpkins music only group leader Billy Corgan signed an amendment to the band's initial contract. In addition to allowing downloads, Corgan agreed to let Virgin implement a mid-price sales campaign on the Pumpkins' catalog.
They also contend that a royalty payment for digital sales of the band's work was sent to Corgan in 2007 and that they were never compensated. After discovering 100% of the royalties had gone to Corgan, Iha and Wretzky requested copies of digital income statements and never received them,.

Melvin Van Peebles explored his distrust of “the man” when he was making the films “Don’t Play Us Cheap,” “The Story of a Three Day Pass” and “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." A writer, director, actor and composer, he has now determined that ASCAP, which is responsible for the collection of royalties, failed to list close to 100 of his songs in their databank and therefore owes him $20 million.
Van Peebles claims ASCAP failed to maintain his catalog and make it available to potential licensees. (Seems to me that’s what a music publisher does, not ASCAP, BMI or SESAC). His beef is that between 1968 and now, he registered 157 compositions but some time between 1992 and 2005, ASCAP deleted or lost most of his repertoire. The mishap, Van Peebles appears to believe, occurred when ASCAP instituted its ACE system, which made the databank electronically based rather than paper based.
In January 2005, Van Peebles noticed that ASCAP only listed 24 of compositions in its database thereby limiting the number of songs available to license. The lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of New York state, alleges that ASCAP was not able to find the original registrations and that he would have to re-register his work.
He does go overboard a bit as part of the lawsuit looks like it was written by Jackie Chiles. Van Peebles actually complains that ASCAP president and chairman Marilyn Bergman is not “nurturing music makers throughout their careers,” a statement on the organization’s website.
Van Peebles’ attorney, Blair C. Fensterstock, said “This failure by ASCAP to Mr. Van Peebles appears to be only the tip of the iceberg relative to ASCAP’s sloppy and reckless handling of its fiduciary duty.”
Clearly, it’s lewd, lascivious, salacious and outrageous.
For the record, allmusic.com lists only one of his tunes being covered by an artist not associated with one of films, Grace Jones, who recorded “The Apple Stretcher.”