Here's the thing -- the Anglo-American legal system is based on property rights. Under our system when a creator makes something, that thing is his or her property. Under our system, the government protects the creators' right to that intellectual property, but only in pretty limited ways compared to real property protections -- creators are granted the exclusive rights to use and reproduce the intellectual property certain ways for a limited period of time, after that period of time, the property becomes public property (unlike, say, real property like land you buy, which doesn't become public property after a time). Because the work is property, you can sell it or assign it or allow people or companies to use it pursuant to terms you negotiate and/or terms that are legally mandated and defined. So songwriters often sell the work they've created under terms that say the buyer can use the property to generate revenue, as long as the new owner shares the revenue. And the law which creates implements music copyrights in the US (in the US, copyright is a constitutional matter), also has a specific scheme for determining compensation rates when copyrighted songs are used. This all relates to the song, not the recording. The recording is a different piece of property and has different rights associated with it, but again they are intellectual property right -- the sound recording is a piece of property that belongs to some person or entity, that person or entity has the exclusive right to use it for a limited period of time after which it becomes public property. All of that is different from doing a job. If you're hired to work as a coal miner, no intellectual property is created. And the coal you mine isn't your property (and btw, there are ways in which it is harder to write a hit song than to mine coal. There are many more people certainly who are capable of mining coal than of writing a hit song). It's just a job. You don't have property rights associated with the coal. That's more like being a session musician -- you show up, get paid to play the gig, and your work its done. You don't have ownership rights to the material, you've just done a service for hire. It's also different from real property -- if you buy a piece of land and build a house on it, you can live in it, you can rent it, but it stays yours (or your heirs) forever, you don't lose ownership of it and have it become public property after a set period of time. The rub is really copyright duration. Copyright is extended for only a limited time (because the theory behind copyright is to encourage people to share their ideas and to make new ideas and ultimately allow others to build on those ideas), but the limited time is long -- in the US, for works created from '78 to the present, it's the life of the author plus 70 years (for a work made for hire, its 95 years for the entity that hired you to do the work it now owns) -- and governments keep making it longer (in the 1790s in the US it was 14 years with a right to renew for another 14 years). So a valuable piece of intellectual property can throw off money for more than 100 years. Should something you create not be your property? (Or should there be no private property at all?) Should copyright be extended for a shorter time? These are questions people continue to debate and argue about. But regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum in terms of labor and property, I don't know that working in a coal mine, and creating a useful piece of original intellectual property are directly analogous.
It's very easy to focus on the people at the top of the pyramid in any profession. No one is entitled to an equal share of the pie if they didn't earn it. That's life. Vote with your wallet if you think it's unjust.
Yes, that is the “reward”, “if you are clever enough to be a business owner or a songwriter”, because not everyone has the talent, ability, knowledge, or training to a business owner or songwriter. That’s a harsh, but simple reality.
As someone who earns money from royalties, I don't have a problem with it. On a related issue, there are many aspects of copyright law that I don't agree with, but one thing I do agree with is this: if people are earning money off of my work, or off of something that incorporates my work, I should be earning a portion of that money, and that shouldn't cease to be the case just because I'm no longer alive (so my estate should continue to earn a portion of the money). The exception is if I contractually agreed to do something for a flat fee or for a salary for a limited period of time, which I do often enough.
It really all depends on what you're able to do with the company you own, or with the song you create. There are many, many, many more business owners and songwriters who lost or never made money through their efforts and ownership (and financial risk), than there are those who got rich. But, yeah, if you own something valuable -- and a lot of time that value really comes from what you do to make it be of value, one song I write on my couch that no one ever hears isn't particularly valuable, I have to go out and build it into something of value, a company I start has no value until I convince people it's offering some goods or services of value and I can deliver on that -- chances are you'll be able to make more money in a capitalist system than if you're a non-equity-holding laborer.
it's not live everyone can write "Hey Jude" If it helps, I don't think Paul raked in much green for 'Bip Bop"
Not that the lifestyle differences between having $300 million or $1 billion are life changing, but it's a good point. I don't know that anyone becomes a billionaire from songwriting royalties. You gotta branch out and own record labels or Beats headphones or Vitamin Water, or real estate or cattle or whatever, you need to parlay the money you make from the songwriting into other income in other areas to get to be a billionaire. The most successful songwriters and performers can do very, very well. But it's not the most lucrative part of the entertainment business, and songwriting royalties -- which are relatively small and largely defined by governments -- don't make you a billionaire.
Never mind a whole bunch of hit songs like that. Someone good and hard working and lucky might write one "Hey Jude" but to write a couple dozen giant international hits (and to make 'em into international hits by going out and flogging them in performance), is something even fewer people can do.
When Beethoven moved to Vienna permanently in 1792, the city was still very much mourning Mozart and Beethoven's genius was obvious enough for him to quickly be considered Mozart's heir apparent. For the first five years or so, his compositional output was underwhelming (there's a few theories as to why), but he made his name immediately for his brilliance as a pianist, even winning two high profile 'duels' against other leading virtuosi of the time. He made, on average, ~4,000 florins annually, which would be something like $150,000 today. Mozart was pulling in an unprecedented 10,000 florins, but died in debt owing to his lavish lifestyle and total lack of pragmatism (a constant source of friction between he and his father). Unlike Mozart and Beethoven, Bach was never recognized as the greatest composer of Baroque music during his lifetime (Telemann was the rockstar and a great composer in his own right), but also a musician, no matter how brilliant, was not held in the same social esteem as we would see even a generation later. Bach spent most of his career as the Kapellmeister at Thomaskirche, meaning he was basically the highest ranking musician in Leipzig and made a bureaucrat's living. Also not the best with money, he spent 30 days in debtor's prison. People will never stop debating the nature of Mozart's childhood, but the only one of the three that you could argue was definitely exploited was Beethoven as a child, who was subject to his drunken father's brutal abuse. As adults, you could say Bach was undervalued, but none of them exploited.
Thanks everyone for your comments. I wasn't trying to start any trouble. I genuinely wanted to better understand the feelings of others regarding the royalty system. I believe in questioning everything. Not trying to get political, but obviously some of the other systems we've had in place for a while now are failing in the US, and the wealth gap continues to grow. I'm not sure where the world is heading most days.
It seems like the your real questions are with capitalism, fair compensation, and taxation. But the way you phrased your question makes it seem like you are the guy from Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing", asking why musicians should be compensated for making music, which understandably pisses some people off (particularly musicians). BTW, there are numerous books about the music industry and how musicians get compensated and intellectual property rights generally, if you are really interested in this subject.
I don't see why you had to share that with us. Plus why were you living there? Unless you were native to it.
Agree completely about why kids, grandkids, great-grandkids of anyone (not just musicians) who makes a ton a money should inherit millions / billions for doing absolutely nothing? .
This is a music forum, correct ? It’s not a forum to whine about the supposed inequities of life. Tom Brady makes millions as a professional athlete, his supermodel wife makes even more than him. But Brady put a lot of fans in the seats at Gillette Stadium. Who should get all that money ? Robert Kraft ? Mr. Kraft deserves a big chunk of the pie, after all he invested the money upfront. But Tom Brady was a big factor in the New England Patriots success, so he got very well paid for it. Paul McCartney is an extreme example of a successful songwriter. It could have gone a far different way. The Beatles could have failed to make it big in the USA. But The Beatles were a breath of fresh air in 1964 after the Kennedy assassination. They were different, and they were extremely likeable. And they wrote very catchy songs ! Later on, after The Beatles ended, I’m sure McCartney made better business decisions in terms of music publishing, royalty rates on albums sold, concert revenues, and merchandising. Chalk it up to business acumen, hard work, just plain luck, or some combination. Some people are enormously successful and wealthy, most of us are not. Resenting those people is not time well spent.
