Let’s say Sting wants to sing “Every Breath You Take” after the band broke up. Or John Lennon wanted to sing “All You Need Is Love” after the band broke up.
Do all members have rights to the music they made together or do they have to pay for covering the song?
AIUI It will depend on the legal niceties of how the band is set up. Here is a lengthy article on the subject:
Music Law 101: Who Owns The Copyright In A Song? | ReverbNation Blog.
As far as the Beatles are concerned, John and Paul had an agreement since their teenage years that any song written by either of them would be credited to them jointly. This is why the vast majority of Beatles songs have a Lennon-McCartney credit, including many that were not actually written by the two jointly but rather by one of them individually.
From a legal perspective, copyright is transferable. A typical set-up is that the band has a contractual arrangement with a record company that assigns the copyright to that company. The Beatles released most of their music through a company named Northern Songs (of which John and George were shareholders), and it held the copyright to most of the songs, though not all, because George and Ringo preferred to retain it for the songs they wrote.
It just depends on who wrote the song and - if relevant - who the author/s decide to credit with the song.
The default is that copyright automatically goes to the author/s. So barring other arrangements, the member/s of the band that wrote the song get the rights. However, the default can lead to lack of clarity, given that songs can often be collaborative. This has lead to many arguments and legal battles.
The way around this is to reach agreement (preferably beforehand) about who will be credited with authorship.
Where one (or a select few) bandmembers write the songs and receive the writing credits they can end up far wealthier than the others because they may receive massive and long running royalties on long lived popular songs, while their bandmates do not. This has often lead to friction, and the band breaking up.
There are bands that made deliberate decisions that all songs would be recorded as being by the band ie shared writing credits and shared royalties, to avoid this issue. U2 is an example. I believe Radiohead may be another.
I recall reading that Elvis when he was famous would agree to record a song if the songwriter would agree to also give him credit (and hence share royalties).
R.E.M. as well. I like bands that make this arrangement, because in the end almost all band members are involved in creating a song.
Not just Elvis, but other major artists struck deals to gain publishing rights and mechanical royalties. It may be more notable for Elvis since he didn’t right any of his own material. This was a deal Col Tom Parker struck for Elvis, and then he claimed half of all of Elvis’s earnings. It’s an interesting story, for sure.
Dolly Parton, a shrewd business woman, turned down the deal to give up half her writing credits for I Will Always Love You for Elvis to record it. I’m pretty sure that paid off for her in the long run.
All songs list their composer for payment of royalties. This can be any number of people: “Flying” by the Beatles lists all four members of the group. The Doors credited all their songs to “The Doors” (except for some that were credited to “Morrison-Doors” or “Kreiger-Doors”) so all four members got royalties.
Sometimes this leads to friction. The members of the Band would complain that Robbie Robertson would take credit for songs that were collaborations. Eric Idle has blatantly taken credit for songs written by Neil Innes (“Brave Sir Robin” was written by Innes, but he never got credit for it in Spamalot). Matthew Fisher sued to get credited for A Whiter Shade of Pale.
If you want to play or record a song, you just get a license from ASCAP or BMI or the equivalent. It is paid out to those listed as songwriters.
On a similar note, Pete Townshend of the Who wrote the song “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” on the Tommy album, but gave the writing credit to Keith Moon because the song was his idea (and to prevent Moon from actually trying to write the song himself, which Pete assumed would be an utter trainwreck).
Queen did this, as well, on their final two albums, recorded when Freddie Mercury was ill due to AIDS.
Did he also write the original song for Holy Grail or was his contribution just later for the musical?
He wrote it for the movie. Innes wrote several songs for them and worked with them on “Do Not Adjust Your Set.”
Most of the songs in “Holy Grsil’” we’re written by Innes, and he sung
“Brave Sir Robin” in the movie.
Also , the actual recordings have separate copyright too.
So there is royalties from writing the song,
and from recording it. thats why covers can still earn money, right ?
Taylor Swift re-recorded the back-catalogue, so she can sell the same albums again, without having to share the proceeds with the original record company and associates as per the contract she had on the back-catalogue…
IIRC there were some shenanigans surrounding her back catalogue. I think she wanted to buy it, was refused and it was sold to someone else. That pissed her off so she re-recorded the lot and apparently worked hard to keep it sounding as much like the originals as possible (albeit with better fidelity so a superior recording).
It seems that is expensive and a lot of work but now the old song-book is near worthless.
It’s only worthless because her fans choose to buy and listen to the new recordings rather than the old ones. It might not have come out like that had someone else other than Taylor Swift tried it.
I assume too she would have twisted arms (or whatever) to get the streaming services and anyone else who uses her music (radio stations?) to use the new catalog too. I gather streaming does not really pay much, but every little bit helps. If any time you hear her music it’s the new version, the money goes to her. (As it should)
It’s notable that the bands cited as doing this have been around for a long time with no line-up changes*. I’ve often thought that one reason for U2s longevity was that they weren’t arguing about money or credit - everything was split equally.
*REM are the exception, but I believe that Bill Berry left on good terms and it was nothing to do with financial disagreements or “musical differences”.