Dr Dre, Jimmy Iovine Must Pay $25M To Ex-Beats Partner, says Court

A Los Angeles jury awarded Steven Lamar $25,247,350 on Wednesday, ruling that Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine had not paid him royalties due for design work on three models of Beats headphones – the Studio 2 Remastered,  Studio 2 Wireless and Studio 3.

Dre and Iovine had argued Lamar was only owed royalties on the first model.

A 2007 deal signed between Lamar and Beats named one headphone, but with the qualifier the the deal also “embodies the Headphone Design with minor cosmetic modifications.”  Lamar sued and the jury agreed that the additional models were based on his original design.

Even though $25 million is just a drop of the bucket for this pair of near-billionaires, expect an appeal.