Duran Duran sue themselves, officially, sort-of

If you're of a certain age, you will have had disappointing experiences with fanclubs. (Younger readers - fan clubs were what you used to do before they had street teams, when you were marketed at, and not pressganged into being part of the marketing effort.)

Certainly, I'm starting to think that glossy A-Ha poster magazine might now never, ever turn up. It's not the three pounds that stings, it's the amount of time I spent making sure the self-addressed envelope was beautifully presented.

Duran Duran, it turns out, are experiencing a similar disappointing experience from the other side - and they're suing their own fan club:

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges that Worldwide Fan Clubs, Inc. entered into a contract with Duran Duran in 2010 that stipulated the company would create and manage a fan club for the band.

The fan club was also to warehouse and sell band merchandise, maintain accurate fan club records, collect membership fees, keep accurate accounting and give Duran Duran 75 percent of all profits, the suit said. Worldwide Fan Clubs would keep the other 25 percent.

The band is now claiming Worldwide Fan Clubs failed to keep accurate accounting records and make revenue payments to the band, according to the suit.

The problem seems to be, then, that there wasn't as much money as Duran were expecting. Now, that could be because the money wasn't being split properly, or it could simply be because there weren't as many fans as the band expected.

In effect, Duran could be using this lawsuit to try and tell if they're actually still popular.