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Village People star Victor Willis has won a court battle to claim at least a third of the copyrights for songs he wrote for the 70s disco act.
Victor - who was the lead singer and policeman in the novelty band - helped pen tracks including Macho Man, YMCA and In The Navy before becoming embroiled in a series of drug-related troubles in the early 2000s.
The singer, who says he has a new album, Solo Man, coming out in a few weeks, declined to say what kind of payday he expected the ruling by US District Judge Barry Moskowitz to bring him.
But he noted: "Those songs, they gross millions a year, so it could be a significant thing."
Victor was a musician-actor who, among other things, had appeared on Broadway in The Wiz when Jacques Moreli decided to cash in on the disco craze in 1977 by putting together a group made up of beefy, macho-looking men dressed as a biker, a building worker, a policeman, a cowboy and an Indian chief.
Victor was soon dancing up a storm with his bandmates and the Village People sold tens of millions of records in the 1970s.
Victor co-wrote all the big hits, but he also signed away his copyrights to the songs for a cut of the profits that today ranges from 12% to 20%.
