American Idol band members sue American Idol

No wonder the band has been playing so badly in the studio recordings! They're unhappy.

From TMZ:

In a federal lawsuit filed Friday, the American Federation of Musicians claims American Idol Productions made a deal with the band on the show which makes the tunes the whole world sings -- a deal that prohibits "Idol" from cutting the band out of downloads and ringtones of the music played on the show.

Short story ... Since the 4th season "Idol" honchos have been "selling digitally-encoded audio files containing those soundtracks." The suit claims some of the audio files were sold as songs and some as ringtones.

Source TMZ