It’s been a while since I read the post, so I’m open to being corrected, but he claims that he was the main workhorse behind DEVILOOF activities when he was part of the band. Gonna quote from another thread in the forum.
So what I’m basically saying is that while I agree that he should get paid, I don’t think that he will. That’s what I meant when I said that he wasn’t entitled to much; I don’t think there’s much in the way of recompense that he could (reasonably) ask for. What’s done has been done, and I’m not sure that the new label is going to care about stolen demos from releases that aren’t theirs, so I’m not sure how the shakedown for the major label will go. Hopefully he gets paid somehow, but the odds aren’t looking good.
So from this background context here, if he was the only one in the studio and he was the only one recording and the band took his demos, then it means he left them around for them to take. It’s the logical solution, and it was a misstep on his part to not take his materials with him before he left/got kicked out (especially if he left with bad blood between them). Unless they literally blindsided this man with the dismissal, there’s a good chance he could have seen it coming. I’m extra paranoid; I would have backed up all my stuff months ago. He would probably be accused of plagiarizing if he reused his own riffs in new songs too. I support Seiya 100%, but I just don’t see how he could win when this theft happened so long ago…
And what I said about DEVILOOF still playing Seiya’s songs…I’ve noticed a trend in visual kei where bands no longer play certain songs when the main composer leaves the band. I’ve seen it framed as “respect”, but I’m also not versed in Japanese copyright law or tribal visual kei conventions. But if he’s expecting them to not play the songs they ripped from him…I don’t see how that’s enforceable really.