uhmmm...
I'd have to take issue to some of your opinions of what copyright is.
First, copyright does not imply that only you can record or perform the material, but rather that you are entitled to be paid for the use of your work. For that matter, as long as I can validate it sufficiently as my work (and afford a legal team larger than any violators) then the more people who record or perform it...the better. As long as I am paid appropriately, I would rather have several people record my songs, and many others perform it, than to have to try and market it all independantly.
Second, who owns the copyright relates more to who paid for it than to who performed or created it. Examples follow.
If an ad agency hires you to write a jingle for a commercial, they own it.
On the chance that you offer up a song that you had previously written, I would suspect you would offer it during the initial interview for the gig and before the contract is signed. Once you are on retainer...they own everything you write while on thier time, as well as any future derivatives you create from your work on thier product.
You can extend this analogy to being a Staff Writer for any production company, such as Disney, or even anything you contribute as a Studio Musician working directly for a Studio. You are an employee of that company which means they are already paying you to create that work, and in exchange you forfeit any rights of ownership for that work.
Same thing essentially applies to a band recording songs or even complete albums. If the band is jointly owned by all members (which is rarely the case) then they would share in the copyright (or as much of it as the label allows them to retain) according to their own formula for balancing contribution and ownership.
Most bands have 1, or at the most 2, members who represent the band and the remaining members are essentially "Hired Hands" and thus are treated as employees with respect to the copyright. Even in bands where the majority of the songs are written by the 1 or 2, the random offerings of a "Hired Hand" will typically be subject to sharing the copyright with the "1 or 2" in exchange for allowing it to be included in the final product.
At the risk of offending the original poster, I think you were very misleading in suggesting that a musician performing on a recording actually has ownership rights to thier contribution to the particular song, in most cases they don't.
When you add in the boiler plate in "all" recording contracts with any of the majors, typically you retain very little of the publishing and performance rights of all your offerings, at least until you have become proven enough to renegotiate your contract.
I guess this amounts to more than 2 cents worth...
Wee-Lamm
