Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Its my impression that musicians should exercise some caution when considering record offers from some of the Hollywood labels. For example, They ask you to send some of your material, in which case they will offer royalty if the material is used by some artist. And to make it all good, they assure you that your songs remain Copyright protected, and that they won't rob you of your rights to 'that song'

What they do not tell you is: They can take your song, and if you give them written permission to use it, then they can modify , alter, mix it up..and file a Copyright on their version of it (called derived works). If I understand correctly (and please jump in...), They can sell it, exercise mechanical rights over the derived work. Since the derived work is theirs, you have no claimant rights over it, least of which is mechanical i.e Distribution) and essentially you get nothing but a stipend for your original works.

Is that about the sum of it? Or am I way off base?

I think you've got it essentially right.
There is a big market - and it's a publically accepted and legal market - for songs which sound similar to 'this song' or 'that song.'