Royalties are like a patent in a way. You invent a song, occasionally borrowing bits along the way! lol The days of musicians making royalties on a McCartney scale are pretty much over now anyway.
A lot of talk about money here. Who deserves it and who does not. Money is not nearly as valuable as time. Hopefully the older people get, the more they will begin to realise it.
I'm late to the party on this but here's my take on the OP: Let's say your father worked in a coal mine his whole life, earned a salary and now doesn't. He was a salaried worker meaning it was his job to work the mine and as compensation, he would earn $X each day. The owner of the coal mine would continue to make money as long as the coal mine produced enough coal for people to buy it. So the owner's income stream is tied to the length of the mine's productivity. A songwriter, like the coal mine owner, is creating a product for public consumption. As long as there is Joe Q. Public who wants to listen to that song, and is prepared to pay money for it, then the songwriter should continue to receive a portion of the money Joe Q. Public hands over. Also, let's not kid ourselves that Paul McCartney, in your instance, would receive $20 every time someone bought a copy of Abbey Road from iTunes, or from the local record store. His cut would be minuscule. So if you don't want Paul McCartney, or his heirs, to keep receiving royalties on his songs, you need to tell people to stop listening to The Beatles so much. Of course, this opens up a myriad of side questions: How much royalties are paid to the performers of the song, who might not necessarily be the songwriters? Do Olivia and Dhani Harrison receive a royalty check each month from the sale of Beatles songs that George didn't write, but still played guitar and sang background vocals on? What about session musicians, are they the coal miners of the music world? They didn't write the song, but they were hired in its production to achieve the results necessary for the song to be released. Were they paid a one-time session fee, or do they continue to see money from a song they performed on? What about publishing owners, how much are they getting? People, not necessarily performers or the songwriters, who were savvy enough to know that's where the real money was/is. These might be the most tone-deaf people of all time, but they still take home more money from 'Song A' than the person who actually wrote the songs. How much money does a record company make from the sale/broadcast/stream of a song/album? What does the OP think should happen to royalties if they don't go to the songwriter? Are they to be collectively pooled for dissemination among all artists? Finally, does the OP think that Patent owners should, after a period of time, continue to receive royalties? Similar situation. I think everyone knows that the music industry isn't perfect in its financial structure, but I don't agree that rich artists should stop receiving royalties because they've had a big enough piece of the pie already. If an artist has got rich from a song's royalties, then you can bet that other parties have got even richer.
So far McCartney has earned over $16 million U.S. just for the song "Wonderful Christmastime". 16 million bucks for that one silly song that he wrote in like 10 minutes. Does that bother me? Hell no. I say kudos to anyone who can pull off that feat. I don't begrudge any artist for making millions. But this thread now has me wondering how many people here actually have a problem with that.
A patent is different to a copyright. The difference between the two is that the patents that protect the intellectual property of the guy who invented the plastic bread thing is for a limited time of only 20 years. Patent laws attempt to strike a balance between encouraging innovation and ensuring public access to discoveries.
Copyright is supposed to do the same thing -- protect the intellectual property of the creator of the work for a limited time to encourage innovation and ensure public access to new creative idea. That's why it exists. Over here in the US, the copyright clause of the US Constitution gives Congress the power “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The thing is that big copyright holders -- media companies principally -- are constantly lobbying to extend the "limited times" of copyright protection, so now it's the of the author plus 70 years, or 95 years for a work for hire. And courts, while they've expressed dismay at the longer and longer copyright terms, have ruled that since it is still a "limited time" those long terms are still in keeping with the letter of the constitution. I don't think terms are always as long in other countries. Back at the dawn of the republic, copyright was for 14 years, plus you had the option to renew for another 14, so 28 years max.
McCartney was given great advice from his (I think) father-in-law: 'Invest in things that you're interested in.' So Paul began buying music publishing and has amassed a huge publishing catalog. I would imagine a good chunk of money is generated from his investments. The publishing he didn't own was Lennon-McCartney tunes. That may have finally been rectified... I'm not 100% sure... :--)
Excellent post. One of the strong points is "There are many more people certainly who are capable of mining coal than of writing a hit song." The OP's question is somewhat similar to the old argument of why someone like LeBron James (who "only plays basketball") makes so much more than a schoolteacher (whom, it can be argued, contributes so much more to society, etc.). Is it "fair"? Perhaps not, but this is the value we place on these vocations. People should get paid for what they create, be it intellectual property, labor, artifacts, processes, etc., so I have NO problem with any artist earning royalties for their 50-year-old creation. Also, if a billion is "too much," what would be "fair," and who gets to decide, and what criteria is used? If anything, an artist today does not get enough compensation. PS: I am not an artist.
None. Mechanical royalties are for songwriters and song copyright holders only. Performers on a recording who don't own a share of the song don't collect those. No royalties for them either unless they've managed to negotiate a part share in the song ownership. They get paid their session rate for their session work and that's it. The copyright holders all get a piece -- that's the songwriter and the publisher (typically either a company owned by the song writer or a company to which the songwriter sold the publishing rights in whole or part). In the US it's a matter of statute -- if a published song is covered or sold, royalties are due at a rate established by a panel of administrative judges -- the Copyright Royalty Board. The rates differ depending on whether you're talking about a sale or a performance or whatever. Royalties are then split 50/50 between the songwriter and the publisher (and if there are multiple songwriters and multiple publishers, that 50% split is split again among the songwriters and publisher according to their agreement, which may be equal share among multiple parties or 60-40 or 30-10-10 or whatever split they've negotiated). That's totally unrelated to songwriting royalties. Record companies don't make anything from songwriting royalties, and the copyright on the sound recording is a separate copyright from the copyright on the composition, songwriters don't make anything on that (but name performers who have a contract with the record company and may also be the songwriters typically also share in record company income from sales and licenses of the material they've recorded). While royalty rates for songwriting and publishing are established in the US by the government, the use of the sound recording copyright is not governed by a similar statutory scheme and record companies are free to negotiate whatever terms they wish for the use of their sound recordings.
Interesting. When I finally got a job that had a 401K, I immediately began to contribute as soon as I was allowed. I was already used to a certain income and this new job had a salary that was a decent amount more than what I made at my prior job. So after my contribution to my savings plan, I bought music- CDs, vinyl, musical instruments, etc. but never went into debt building my collection. My wife gave me great advice: always pay off my credit cards every month. I was fortunate that I never got to a point where I lost control of my spending. I have a few friends who had to go into bankruptcy for one reason or another. And it definitely changed their outlook on everything once they got their lives back under control. :--)
Man, Rex sure can multitask. I don't think I could eat a sandwich, shoot a gun and tell an anecdote at the same time.
Yeah but no one is playing Janis Ian records on the radio or streaming her. They're still playing from the Beatles to this day though. Seriously, though McCartney's contract is probably different from other contracts to where many people - writers/artists - don't get paid as they should. We've heard horror stories of musicians getting screwed out of royalties from their contracts.
Last I checked, I think he was in the process of having the ownership of the Beatles songs returned to him and Lennon's estate.
It's strange, ain't it? Why should we whine about how much one gets? If one wrote the song, they SHOULD get that money. Why is it suddenly an issue?
Plus in LR's case, he was forced to sign away his royalties, which was the main cause of his lawsuit in the first place.
The Beatles were never on the Apple label - they just used the graphic on the records Capitol and Parliphone put out for them. And they never had complete control over Northern Songs, and eventually lost all their ownership interest in it.
The term "royalties" is so generic in this context that it's meaningless. Are you talking about the money that's paid to an artist or a songwriter by their label or publisher? Or by their performing rights organization? If so, that's a contractual payment pursuant to a private contract that both parties willingly entered into. What is wrong with that? Or you talking about the obligation of people who reproduce, distribute and profit from someone else's property to pay a certain amount of the money they make (basically) back to the person who created and owns that property? If so, are you complaining about the actual rates themselves being too high, or are you complaining about the mere fact that a party that is profiting from another person's property has the obligation to pay that person at all? If it's the former, you're complaining about the end result of very expensive litigation. If it's the latter, you're complaining about the US Congress back in 1909 and ultimately about the framers of the US Constitution and the very concept of copyright protection. So what is it, exactly, that you don't like? My inclination is that it's the latter you're actually complaning about, and these days that position often ultimately traces back to Ayn Rand worshipping libertarian billionaires who are very adept at trying to vilify any legislation that gets in the way of them enjoying an unregulated monopoly, and at getting the general public to unwittingly support their position (see SOPA). As two other people have already said, this is a very ignorant thread. I once had the misfortune of listening to a state (of course!) judge from a southern (of course!) state opine that the children of a deceased artist shouldn't be allowed to earn money from the work that artist did. I have no doubt whatsoever that the same judge had no problem with the heirs of business founders getting massive inheritances - and that he probably disliked the estate tax.
Except for non-interactive digital streaming and satellite transmission (SoundExchange). It's an illogical patchwork mess.
If anybody has any questions about royalties, artist or publisher or songwriter compensation, or performance rights derived from musical works, it would make a great deal of difference to me, if we could please focus on the issue...without for some godforsaken reason, focusing it on Paul McCartney? Was that really the only possible musical industry professional he could think of, in context to a wide-ranging question which involves, I dunno...115% of all music industry professionals? Next up: "Global Warming: How does this affect The Beatles...?"
