Arguably no other musical act has ever had a bigger impact on the industry, and popular culture as a whole, than Merseyside megastars The Beatles. \u201cThe Fab Four\u201d have been no strangers to controversy over the years, and one of the more infamous aspects of their careers has been who holds the intellectual property rights to their music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From record conglomerates to Michael Jackson, The Beatles\u2019 music catalogue has found itself in the hands of an eclectic mix of owners over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Eurovision brings its iconic songwriting contest to Liverpool this week, we look at the concept of \u201cownership\u201d when it comes to intellectual property, specifically copyright, and what it truly means to \u201cown\u201d a song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we delve into The Beatles\u2019 catalogue, it is important to understand how copyright works. \u201cWhen a piece of music (a musical work) is created, copyright comes into existence automatically \u2013 and is thus \u201cprotected\u201d by the relevant domestic and international copyright laws \u201d explains Forresters Associate\u00a0Ian Duncan. \u201cThis copyright is a form of property right and has an owner. In copyright law, we have the \u201cfirst owner\u201d of a copyrighted work \u2013 in the vast majority of cases, this is the author (or joint authors).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAny party wanting to use the work belonging to the owner could do so with the agreement of the owner\u2026with the most obvious incentive being a licence agreement which includes royalty payments to the owner. These could be in the form of a one-off payment, regular payments, revenue-linked payments, or some other financial arrangement. The agreement may cover the entire work (someone wanting to use an entire song) or part of it (for instance, they want to chop out and use only the chorus of a song for an advert).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHowever, the copyright in a song can be assigned (sold) to someone else for money. What this means is that the first owner (the author) no longer owns the copyright in the song \u2013 it now belongs to whoever has bought it, often a record company. This can happen after a song is created\/recorded, or it can happen before the song is even created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCopyright is generally what a \u201crecord deal\u201d will centre around. In many instances, a company will offer the artist a deal whereby they will provide them with the funds to produce an album in a studio (with a producer and so on), access to a marketing\/PR team, may offer them an advance payment and will most likely offer the artist(s) a royalty payment (likely a cut of the sales of the recording). The cost to the artist is they will not own the full copyright in whatever they produce under the agreement \u2013 they may assign the entire copyright, or a share in it, to the record company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Early in The Beatles\u2019 storied career, primary songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney founded a limited company called Northern Songs Ltd,<\/strong> together with music publisher Dick James and manager Brian Epstein. The company\u2019s purpose was to publish the songs they had written and recorded as The Beatles. In 1965, Northern Songs Ltd became a public company, reducing the company\u2019s income tax burden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crucially, Lennon and McCartney did not hold majority shares in the company, each owning 20 per cent. Epstein received 10 per cent, and James, along with partner Charles Silver, owned 50 per cent. In practice, this meant that the vast majority of the revenue generated by the publishing of the songs went to the majority owners, James and Silver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1969, Northern Songs was taken over by Associated TeleVision, which led to McCartney and Lennon selling their shares. This meant that ATV became the sole owners of The Beatles\u2019 music published by Northern Songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main reason The Beatles\u2019 catalogue has been so hotly contested is because of the money it generates. The individual or company that owns the rights to these songs reaps the rewards, as they are entitled to royalty payments when the songs are played, performed, streamed or purchased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ian explains: \u201cWhat has become increasingly common among popular and well-established artists is the sale of their rights in a back-catalogue of music. Many of these artists have songs which are so well-known and are constantly in use that they generate a constant stream of royalties. For an artist, it may make more sense to \u201ccash-in\u201d and get an upfront lump-sum payment (which can be in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, as seen in recent years), and leave the burdensome task of collecting royalties to a company. As much of the back-catalogue may be so well established, this can also be an incredibly lucrative investment for the new owner \u2013 particularly when added to a substantial portfolio of works\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the early 1980s, Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson collaborated on Jackson\u2019s single, \u201cThe Girl Is Mine,\u201d as well as McCartney\u2019s song \u201cSay Say Say.\u201d It was during this period that McCartney introduced Jackson to the idea of purchasing song catalogues; so the story goes, Jackson told McCartney \u201cone day, I\u2019ll own your songs.\u201d A few years later in 1985, Jackson outbid McCartney to purchase ATV\u2019s entire catalogue- including the publishing rights to 251 of The Beatles\u2019 songs- for $47 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1995, Sony acquired 50% of the catalogue from Jackson, forming the company Sony\/ATV. Sony later took full control of the catalogue after Jackson\u2019s death, paying $750 million to Jackson\u2019s estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the US Copyright Act of 1976, McCartney was finally able to reach a confidential settlement agreement with Sony\/ATV regarding the catalogue. This legislation allows songwriters to reclaim copyright from music publishers 35 years after they sold it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its heart, Eurovision is a contest primarily focused on the songs<\/strong> being performed<\/strong> rather than the performances themselves. However, it could be argued that the songwriters behind these compositions don\u2019t always get the credit they deserve \u2013 and one of Eurovision\u2019s most famous faces, Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA, agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ulvaeus commissioned a study by MIDiA Research called \u201cRebalancing the Song Economy,\u201d exploring the income of songwriters compared to performing artists. The study found that, much like the performing artists, the revenue generated by songwriters pales in comparison to the staggering profits made by record labels, publishers and producers, due in no small part to the fact these entities often retain the lion\u2019s share of the rights to the intellectual property related to the artists\u2019 brands, merchandise and the songs themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems that as years go by and the face of the music industry changes, one fact remains; securing the rights to intellectual property is a vital step to ensuring you benefit from your creations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arguably no other musical act has ever had a bigger impact on the industry, and popular culture as a whole, than Merseyside megastars The Beatles. \u201cThe Fab Four\u201d have been no strangers to controversy over the years, and one of the more infamous aspects of their careers has been who holds the intellectual property rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[348],"tags":[441,430],"class_list":["post-5414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-de","tag-entertainment-de","tag-ip-education-de"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho is entitled to royalty payments and why?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Songwriters vs Labels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n