Let’s say that my brother has made a few million writing jingles for commercials, and still collects royalty checks here and there. My brother dies and leaves me everything. Do I get the rights to his royalty checks? Or do those “die” with him?
Yes, they are owned by the estate after death, and disposed of like any other property. Not too long ago, the expiration of copyrighted work was dramatically extended (70 years?) which is beyond what most holders can expect to live.
Copyright lasts for the author’s life plus seventy years, which is seventy years beyond what most authors can expect to live :-). If your brother has retained copyright (as opposed to doing some work-for-hire arrangement where someone else gets the copyright) and leaves it to you, then yeah, you get the royalties.
Is this a Charlie Harper inspired question?
Yes, yes it is.
I occasionally get a royalty check from songs my great grandmother wrote. Apparently the music company had been holding out on the estate for years and had to payout several thousands to the family in big lumps.
I want to know which songs Push You Down’s great grandmother wrote.
But one nitpick, though, as the OP specifically mentioned commercial jingles. Do you get royalties for them? I would have thought that it’s something for which you only get the contracted amount without any ongoing royalties.
You can inherit them but they can also be assigned while the author is living, and they can also be attached by creditors.
A commercial jingle is like any musical composition. Most composers work as freelancers, not as employees. Thus, they retain the rights.
I was just thinking about this today because two of Barry Manilow’s jingles are back in heavy rotation (“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” and “I am stuck on Band-Aid”). I thought I remembered that he was paid a one-time fee and didn’t receive royalties, but some websites suggest that he is still being paid each time they air. I can’t seem to find a definitive answer.
The rights would go to his heirs after he died.
The terms of compensation will be difficult to find out. They’re part of private contractual relationships.
If Manilow was an employee (unlikely) then the copyright will be held by his employer at first (likely to be sold subsequently).
If he worked as a freelancer, he had the option of granting all manner of licenses, including a flat-fee license. The more famous he was at the time, the more likely he retained better terms and ongoing royalties.
Yes, I’ve had no luck finding out the terms, but because he talks very freely about his jingles, and includes them in his shows (and on an album) as the V.S.M (Very Special Medley), you’d think at some point he would either have complained about not being compensated fully or mentioned the continuing royalties.
He was not at all famous at the time he wrote the jingles, which predate his pop career.
Retaining rights is really a contractual thing. It is true that most employees do not retain rights and most freelancers do… but there’s no reason a contract can’t be worded differently for either case.
True, but the contract the freelancer signs can assign all rights to the company. In addition, being a freelancer does not mean you’re not doing work for hire, especially if they specifically hire you to perform the work. In fact, copyright law specifically states that work for hire is “a work specially commissioned . . . if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work will be considered a work for hire.”
So for ad jingles, the contract makes sure you don’t royalties.
A cousin of mine makes a living on composing jingles (he used to anyway).
I have read about a jingle-composer in Sweden who was hired by an American company. One day he got an order for so-and-so many jingles of a certain length. He sat down to work, delivered to his employer and didn’t think any more about it until he watched the TV broadcasts from the Olympic games in Seoul. It turned out that his jingles were used whenever they switched from one arena to another and with that exposure to audiences all over the word he got a tremendous amount of royalties.
Article about my great grandma.
Very interesting!