So, do you write hit songs? or MOR album tracks
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 5:58 pmSo, do you write hit songs? or MOR album tracks?
A recorded song has two principal sets of rights—the publishing and the master recording. The publishing covers the copyright of the composition, and the master is the sound-recording copyright. The master is the real estate; the publishing is the mineral rights under the land, and the air rights. In addition there are mechanical royalties, which are based on sales, and performance royalties, for when a song is played or performed in public, including on the radio.
There are also synchronization rights, for use of a song in a commercial, ball game, TV show, or movie. In some countries (though not in the United States), there are neighboring rights, which are granted to non-authors who are closely connected to the song, such as the performers. The system is ridiculously complicated, as it’s supposed to be. It takes a music attorney like Davis to understand all the complexities in royalties payments. Labels have lots of them..But ever since Napster set music free in 1998, the customer has been able to get any hit he wants without paying for it. This presents a problem, if you’re Clive Davis or Jason Flom, because making hits, as we will see, can be very expensive. “What would happen if shoppers had the option to get groceries or furniture for free?” Flom asks. “Those businesses would have to adapt rapidly, just as we’ve had to do.”
Even on the legal streaming services, such as Spotify, music consumption is “frictionless”—a favorite word of techies. It means—well, not “free” exactly, but at least unburdened by the inconvenience of purchasing a product. You’ve gone from a world of scarcity to one of abundance. Nothing is for sale, because everything is available. For both the pirates and the paying subscribers, buying records is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And yet the hits go on and on.
A recorded song has two principal sets of rights—the publishing and the master recording. The publishing covers the copyright of the composition, and the master is the sound-recording copyright. The master is the real estate; the publishing is the mineral rights under the land, and the air rights. In addition there are mechanical royalties, which are based on sales, and performance royalties, for when a song is played or performed in public, including on the radio.
There are also synchronization rights, for use of a song in a commercial, ball game, TV show, or movie. In some countries (though not in the United States), there are neighboring rights, which are granted to non-authors who are closely connected to the song, such as the performers. The system is ridiculously complicated, as it’s supposed to be. It takes a music attorney like Davis to understand all the complexities in royalties payments. Labels have lots of them..But ever since Napster set music free in 1998, the customer has been able to get any hit he wants without paying for it. This presents a problem, if you’re Clive Davis or Jason Flom, because making hits, as we will see, can be very expensive. “What would happen if shoppers had the option to get groceries or furniture for free?” Flom asks. “Those businesses would have to adapt rapidly, just as we’ve had to do.”
Even on the legal streaming services, such as Spotify, music consumption is “frictionless”—a favorite word of techies. It means—well, not “free” exactly, but at least unburdened by the inconvenience of purchasing a product. You’ve gone from a world of scarcity to one of abundance. Nothing is for sale, because everything is available. For both the pirates and the paying subscribers, buying records is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. And yet the hits go on and on.
