Which artists have made out well financially over the years with the publishing income of their back catalogs? From what I've seen some artists have done consistently well over the years. They have managed to retain ownership of their publishing rights make sound business decisions and have generated for themselves a considerable stream of income over the years. Of course there are the many, many stories of various big artists losing control of their publishing rights. Obvious big names are Lennon and McCartney with the Northern Songs fiasco, Mick and Keith with Alan Klein, Brian Wilson...Sea of Tunes/father and the list goes on. The overreaching and/or naïveté, ignorance of some of these artists have resulted in much financial loss and missed opportunities. Mark Farner and John Fogerty come to mind. Whereas artists such as Don McClean, Eric Carmen, R.E.M., and Paul Simon to name a few have reaped huge financial benefits. What amazes me is how some of the bands/artists with lesser big hits/album sales are still doing quite well with the publishing. Some of these artists were smart and kept their eyes on the numbers. Others had good management who didn't take advantage. I shudder to think of the missed financial opportunities of Lennon & McCartney, Mick and Keith and Brian Wilson. Don't get me wrong. They still are quite well off but it's unbelievable how others in the industry have become very rich off of others.
Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson made a fortune in publishing with Abba's music, especially for the MamaMia thing and the movie et al. There were also some successful cover versions of Abba's songs that hit the charts and made them even more money.
Paul McCartney learned his lesson. He set up his own publishing house for his solo compositions, and then he bought numerous other publishers. Eventually, he bought Beechwood Music (Ardmore & Beechwood Ltd. in the UK), so he owns the publishing for "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" (which he split 50/50 with Lenono Music).
Linda's father and brother were/are both attorneys that worked in publishing, so he got a lot of advice from them. Nick Lowe is another who hung onto his publishing and made out very well when a cover of "Peace. Love and Understanding" ended up on the B-side to Whitney Houston's single of "I Will Always Love You", on "The Bodyguard" sdtk and in the movie.
Interesting. Abba is often overlooked despite all the records they sold worldwide. I didn't realize they wrote their songs too.
He learned his lesson and had good advice from the Eastmans. I know at one time he had the rights to the Buddy Holly catalog.
they didnt just write them. they produced them AND recorded and mixed them. Thats what got me into them initially. Somebody gave me a copy of SuperTrouper (album) and said, listen to this under headphones. Amazing stuff.
I neglected to mention Sting in my original post. He's done very well over the years. Just the publishing of "Every Breath You take" is a sizeable yearly income. The same can be said for "My Sharona" by Berton Averre and Doug Fieger of the Knack.
how are we categorizing "publishing" in this conversation? Royalty sales of existing bands recordings arent necessarily under the "publishing" umbrella... depending upon how you define publishing. Those could be defined as songwriting royalties, which (or cannot) be defined as publishing. By that I mean, one could say that Pete Townsend doesnt get publishing money from sales of Tommy CDs. He gets songwriter royalties. Which can (and cannot) be the same thing. He gets publishing income from sales of Pinball Wizard to a car company for a commercial on TV etc etc Often "publishing" means sales of sheet music (thats what it was originally defined as but as the years went on and music business got bigger, the definition broadened) or sales of said song to other uses, like movies or TV commercials, and royalties from other bands covering the song. So how are we defining it here? Just curious.
I've written this in other threads, but Ian Hunter has earned more from having written three songs - "Ships," "Once Bitten Twice Shy," and "Cleveland Rocks" - than in the entire rest of his music career.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm not referring to songwriting royalties. I'm referring to what you mention in the last paragraph of your reply. Income from covers of other bands using song, commercials, tv shows, movies etc..
Wombat Reynolds is right in that royalties aren't really publishing income. However, a royalty payment is split between the songwriter and the publisher. If the songwriter also owns the publishing it means they'll get more of the money. So I think, royalties would be quite important to the earning power (well maybe less so now that people aren't buying as many cds or lps) of an artist if they also own their publishing. If you were to ignore the publishing side of the royalties you're ignoring a significant portion of revenue, at least when people were buying physical product
Good points eddiel. Paul Simon did quite well years ago with The Graduate movie and soundtrack. He retained his publishing and set up a publishing company early on. Nowadays artists don't sell albums like they used to.
Interesting. They are undoubtedly the greatest songwriting duo of the rock era. It was one of the best known and most successful musical collaborations in history, with the Beatles selling over 600 million records, tapes and CDs.
