For example Heat Wave was a big hit for Martha & the Vandellas. Linda Ronstadt had a huge hit with it a decade later.
Who holds the copyright?
The writer, artist, producer, or record label?
They all played a part in creating that music.
I have read that John Fogerty doesn’t own all the CCR songs that he wrote. I’m not sure if that’s how copyright law works or if he signed away his rights.
What about Elton John? He plays and records Bernie Taupin’s songs. Who holds copyright?
Fogerty did lose his rights to his Creedence songs as a condition of being let out of his contract with Fantasy Records. However in 2004, Fantasy Records was sold to new owners who gave Fogerty back his copyrights and paid him a significant amount of back royalties. He now once again owns the songs that he had previously signed away his rights to.
There are two copyrights involved in a recording: The underlying music and the recording.
For example, if John writes a song and Mary records it, John owns the copyright to the underlying music and Mary holds the copyright to that particular recording of the music.
Typically, a professional songwriter will either sell the copyright to a publisher or contract with a publisher to administer the copyright. Of course, songwriters can self-publish if they choose.
Now, whoever creates a recording of the music owns the copyright on the recording. Much to the surprise of many inexperienced performers, this could be the recording engineer. So typically, everyone will sign agreements as to who owns the copyright in the recording before entering into the studio. If a record company is involved, they will typically end up owning the copyright in the recording, but (rarely) other agreements can be entered into.
Major recording artists will often demand that the writers sign over part ownership of the music to the recording artist as a condition of recording it.
In the United States (only), only the writer owns performance rights, except on streaming internet and subscription satellite services. When the song is played on terrestrial radio or in a concert hall, only the songwriter (or publisher) gets paid.
When a performer makes a recording of the song, the songwriter/publisher gets paid. When a copy of the recording is sold, the record label (or the owner of the recording, if no label) gets paid. Typically, the record label will use the proceeds to pay back the performer’s advance. Once the advance is paid back, the performer may get some percentage of the sales.
In the United State, if it’s performed by a band, the songwriters (or their successors) get paid. The band also gets paid if it is streamed over the internet or subscription satellite radio.
If those performers have a typical recording contract, the original writers (or their successors) get paid for each recording. The performers get paid according to the terms of their contracts with the record labels. The typical contract gives the performers a cash advance, which is paid back by percentage of the records sales. Except for the really large mega-hits, most performers never pay back their advances.
I watched a documentary last year which said that it is the writers who make the most money out of music. They own (usually) the copyright to their music, so whoever performs it, they get a fee. The point was that the writers, many of whom are pretty unknown like Felice and Boudleaux Bryant who wrote a string of hits like Love Hurts for the Everly Bros, revived by Roy Orbison, then Gram Parsons in 1974, and later by U.K. hard rockers Nazareth, carry on collecting royalties long after the original performance is forgotten.
Well, sometimes. But there are many more cases where the music promoters got legal ownership of the material and paid the writers a single fee.
The thing to realize is that there is not that much difference between INTELLECTUAL property and REAL property, from a legal and financial standpoint. Both are more complicated than just “this is mine and that is yours.” In fact, back in the 1960’s, part of the great rock and roll “revolution,” was that for the first time, ARTISTS began to gain ownership of THEMSELVES. Instead of essentially signing on to be chattel to the producers, they would instead own themselves and their performances, and team up with producers and promoters in order for everyone to JOINTLY make money.
And still today, ownership of some famous artistic creations ends up in the hands of people who had nothing to do with the creation. For example, the vast majority of the works of The Beatles, are owned, not by McCartney or Starr, but by the holding company for Michael Jackson.
McCartney has the rights back now (75% had passed to Sony from MJ’s estate)
the story of Northern songs outlines nicely how the value of song rights has increased over the years. (figues from the Wiki page so apologies!)
During 1965 it was decided to make Northern Songs a public company…After the offer was closed, Lennon and McCartney owned 15% each, worth £195,200
Lennon and McCartney were offered £9,000,000 by ATV for their remaining shares on 5 April 1969
Unable to gain control of Northern Songs, Lennon and McCartney sold their stock (Lennon’s 644,000 shares and McCartney’s 751,000) in October 1969,[26] for £3.5 million
In 1981, with Yoko Ono, McCartney attempted to make a joint purchase of the Northern Songs catalogue. “I was offered the songs to buy for 20 million pounds”
In June 1985…Jackson’s bid of £24,400,000,[7] was accepted
In 1995, Jackson merged his catalogue with Sony Music’s publishing for a reported £59,052,000
2016: After announcing their intention to trigger their purchase option of Jackson’s stake in the company, Sony officially agreed to buy out the Jackson estate’s full 50 percent of Sony/ATV for $750 million
so £195k to over £1Bn in 52 years, not a bad return.
Just want to add that in live theatre musicals, there are “grand rights,” where the music composer and song lyricist have to get paid every time the song is performed. These rights are not transferable, nobody can buy them, and they must be paid. No exceptions. Shows have been delayed or even closed over grand right disputes.
Robert Lopez must be getting a good amount from Disney over Frozen’s grand rights.
Exactly. It’s not just a question of what the law says, but also about what the contract says. A songwriter will inherently own the copyright of a work as soon as they write it, but they may be under a contract in which they then immediately sell that newly created write to some other entity, such as another person or a corporation.
This also gets complicated by “Work for Hire” rules.
As a general rule, whoever it was who initially set out to create a work most likely owns it. So, if you decide to write a song in your basement, you own it. If you hire a songwriter with the explicit intention of having them writing a song in your basement, you likely still own it as a work for hire. If the songwriter insists you sign a contract making it clear that they retain the copyright, they probably own it. Whoever ends up owning it can turn around and sell it to anyone else.
I thought grand rights automatically went to the holder of the copyright (music or lyrics). A quick googling doesn’t help me much. Can you explain more? If they’re not transferable, what happens when the holder dies?
Ummmmm…since the general question has already been answered I guess I’ll address this. Why would you phrase it that way? Elton writes the music just as much as Bernie writes the lyrics; why is it “Elton John playing Bernie Taupin’s songs”? The obvious answer is that they both hold the copyright, since they both contributed half the song.
To clarify, with songs there are two royalties involved: writing and performance. The writer gets paid for the song, the performer gets paid for the performance (ie the recording).
If you record a song you wrote, you get both. If you cover someone else’s song, you get the performance royalty, they get the writing royalty.
My father-in-law, who died recently at almost 101, wrote band music mostly. He owned the copyrights, and they and the royalties automatically went upon his death to my wife, his only heir. Most of his royalties came from sheet music. He was surprised to get some from YouTube, which had some bands playing his music. I assume the bands also got some of the money.
Given the prevalence of copying machines, he got more money from sheet music than I would have expected.
It’s important to qualify statements like this with the country you are talking about.
I see you are from Australia and that may be the way it works in Australia. In the United States, it does not. The songwriter gets performance royalties. The person who recorded the song does not get any royalties when the recording is played (except over the internet or subscription satellite services). The United States is very different in this regard from most other countries. Many performers and performers’ organizations have been trying to get this changed, but the only place they’ve succeeded is the internet/satellite exception.
The lyricist writes the song lyrics, and owns the copyright on them.
The song composer writes the music, and owns copyright on that.
These can be the same person, or pairs of people who work together (Elton John-Bernie Taupin).
A performer has to pay the lyricist & composer for using their song. But the performer owns copyright on that particular recording of the song, and any records/cassettes/CDs etc of that recording. A different performer can record their own version of the song. They would have to pay the same lyricist & composer who originally wrote it, but this performer would own the copyright on their performance, and all recordings sold of it.
All these copyrights can be sold by their owners. So many Beatles songs were once owned only partly by Lennon/McCartney, then by Michael Jackson, now by Sony.
Also, lyricists or composers can be hired by someone to write a song. Their contract usually says that the copyright will go to the person that hired them.
And performers commonly have agreements with record companies where the record company gets some control over the song performance rights. Plus there are agents who get a percentage, etc. (Though most of this is of the income, not the actual copyright ownership rights.)
I didn’t know that, and you’re right that my knowledge is based on my own experience in Australia (which includes having my own compositions published and recording/releasing covers.) Americans are weird.