What's a record label actually good for? That is a question implied in a lawsuit between Warner Bros. Records and Avenged Sevenfold, a heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, that is scheduled to go to trial this year and has the potential to upend the music industry, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The dispute dates back to 2015, when the act notified its label that it was terminating the contract it signed in 2004, citing the "seven-year rule," which bars personal service contracts lasting longer than seven years. The law has its roots in a pro-labor statute put on the books after the Civil War to prevent long-term contracts from becoming the means for involuntary servitude. The modern version of the rule was famously tested in entertainment in 1944, when Olivia de Havilland used the law to break her contract with Warner Bros after the studio repeatedly suspended her for turning down roles. An appeals court decision helped bring an end to Hollywood's old studio system.

But the seven-year rule has not decimated the record business because the major labels successfully lobbied in the 1980s for an important change after Olivia Newton-John won a "seven-year" battle with MCA Records. Music contracts are generally denominated in deliverables (in Avenged Sevenfold's case, they agreed to record five albums and a couple of live ones for Warners), not length of term. The recording industry successfully convinced California lawmakers that labels invest so much up front in their artists, they should be able to recover the "lost profits" of uncompleted albums from acts who don't fulfill their contractual commitments.

Although artists like Courtney Love and bands like Thirty Seconds to Mars have invoked the seven-year rule in disputes with their labels, those matters settled before they reached trial.

Avenged Sevenfold, which won best new artist at the MTV Music Awards in 2006 and has put out four well-received albums with Warners, could in December become the first musical act to test the law before a jury. The stakes are huge for both the band and the music industry: If it loses, Avenged Sevenfold could face a verdict between $5 million and $10 million. If it wins, the outcome could embolden other acts with contracts older than seven years - which on Warners' roster includes major recording artists Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day ­­­- to exit their current deals.

"We've realized this battle is bigger than just us," says Avenged Sevenfold singer Matt Sanders (known professionally as M. Shadow). "We're fighting so that all musical artists have the same rights everyone else has. It's not like we wanted to be here, but we are down for the fight."

Read more at The Hollywood Reporter.

(Photo - Jeff Forney)