quest. about the the issue between neil and david tickle and royalties

hi enzsplitting78

i don't know if paul was hugely distraught over it, but i don't believe royalties were split evenly because your songwriter is always going to get the lion's share, right...unless he's super generous and cuts everyone in for an equal share..but why would anyone do that for starters? neil would always get more than the others because he contributed something they ...for the most part...didn't contribute--paul's own songwriting credits notwithstanding.

do you think ringo and george got the same royalties as john and paul? no way.

as for david tickle--when the first CH album was being recorded, neil couldn't decide if he should go with david tickle (whom they had hired already) or go with mitchell froom. It was decided that mitchell froom would be given a go. an uncomfortable situation seemed to even itself out when david tickle offered to engineer the record instead of produce it. according to Something So Strong, he claimed he didn't care about percentage points but he was given the same salary as froom to acknowledge his experience

when the time came to get cracking on it..david tickle...alledgely had a fit over the percentage points (which initially he claimed he didn't care about) and there was an argument he ended up walking off the job, so to speak..leaving the band to scramble for a studio and an engineer. then the engineer "follies" started with a succession of people who for one reason or another, didn't work out very well.

If you're interested in this kind of thing..I really do recommend you get a copy of Something So Strong. Very good source for this kind of thing.

To add to Martine's post, I recall it does say in Something So Strong that Neil shared some of his songwriter's pay with the rest of the band, so it wasn't a case of Neil taking all the profits.

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Originally posted by hexed:
To add to Martine's post, I recall it does say in Something So Strong that Neil shared some of his songwriter's pay with the rest of the band, so it wasn't a case of Neil taking all the profits.

if neil was thinking along those lines..then why didn't they just change the royalty contract or whatever and make it even among everyone then?
not trying to start anything, but just curious. there was some mention of mindgames, by neil on the band (to make them stay though they were pissed off about royalties? i'm assuming thats what they meant?)

Honestly, if you've played bass or drum or an instrument on an album (as a member of the band), I don't think you deserve the same royalty as the person(s) writing the songs. But it seems different bands do it different ways. It's not like there's an ironclad standard - it's just down to how they work it out amongst themselves.

The Police, Sting gets the copyright - he's considered the songwriter (for most of their songs) and the others just get the royalty on their performance. Which doesn't amount to nearly as much, and they've grumbled. With U2, almost all of their songwriting credits go "Words by Bono, Music by U2" - which, U2 includes Bono. I don't know how that translates, dollars and cents. That could either be a 4-way equal split, or else Bono gets 5/8ths and everyone else gets an 8th. I suspect the former, given the stability of the band, but either split seems justifiable to me. However they divvy the dosh is up to them.

By contrast, AC/DC splits their royalties 5 ways. If you were in the band for that album, you get the same cut! Crazy, by some standards.

I'm mixing terms here, "royalty" versus who actually owns the copyright of the song (and can license it, which is where the $$$ is). These aren't identical concepts, but then I'm not a lawyer either. Bottom line is, bands work it out amongst themselves, and sometimes the less pivotal contributors get pissed with an unequal share. Should they get pissed, given their unequal contribution? It's arguable.

I remember reading/hearing about Paul/Nick being unhappy at Neil making substantially more money than them but I have no idea if it was true or not. One thing I do remember though is Paul in an interview joking that he sat relaxing and watching his telly, waiting for Neil to ring up to say he'd written all the songs. So I think they were aware how much more Neil puts into things. To my mind that says that they would accept that he deserves more of the profits.

Of course there's probably times when bandmembers feel that they should receive royalties for their input when songs evolve during the recording process, but there can be no argument surely that the person who comes up with the main idea (unless it's a really rough one that changes completely) should get the bulk of the money. Though it's all relative I guess. Songwriters, by all accounts, do seem to do pretty darn well out of the music industry in comparison to mere musicians.

As I understand it (and this is based on my recollection of things I've read or seen - which may not be accurate in themselves) Neil, Nick and Paul were signed to the same band contract which, I presume, gave them the same percentages. However, they will also get royalties from their publishing deal as songwriters. Neil obviously, will earn much more from this than Nick and Paul because he wrote all the songs (with a a few co-compositions and a couple of Paul's).

My understanding was that when he announced the split back in 96 he agreed to give Paul, Mark and Nick a "retirement fund" by giving them a cut of his songwriter royalties from the Recurring Dream album. A very generous act that he didn't have to do.

I'm sure that whatever deal they now have (having had to renegotiate their EMI deal) is to the satisfaction of all otherwise they'd probably not be back together.

Mr. Sadly's explanation is pretty good. To simplify in industry vernacular, just about every recording is subject to two types of royalties.

Mechanical: A royalty paid to the songwriter(s) via his/her respective publishing company. This is for the use of the composition (lyrics/music) in (generally speaking) recorded media. There is no obligation on the part of the songwriter to pay any other member of the band not involved in the actual composition (unless by special arrangement, as discussed).

Performance Royalty: This is is the royalty paid to the artists who perform the composition, recorded, live, etc. Proportions are not necessarily equal here and depend on contract structure.

Six Pence None The Richer covers "Don't Dream It's Over" and you buy it, the band gets a performance royalty and their record company pays Neil Finn the mechanical royalty (which is a set compulsory rate). Oversimplified, but that's the idea.

I could go on, but why bore you! Anyhoo, what I really meant to spell out was MECHANICAL vs. PERFORMANCE royalties, that's it. I'm sure there's a whole Wikipedia thing on it. (yawn)

Thanks for that explanation Augie! I never knew exactly how these things worked. Brilliant short explanation and not boring at all.

quote:

The Police, Sting gets the copyright - he's considered the songwriter (for most of their songs) and the others just get the royalty on their performance.

Actually, I read that Sting's Police publishing royalties are (or at least were) a three-way split that broke down something like this:

34.5% to Sting (since he wrote)
33.5% to Stew (as the founder of the band)
32% to Andy (since he came later)

I seem to recall reading in Sting's autobiography that this arrangement would later (ironically) be one of a number of reasons that lead to their breakup. Disagreements about percentage points, expiration dates, and so forth came into the picture.

It's interesting that their song credits never reflect this arrangement. They always say "words & music by Sting" or "words by Sting, music by Andy Summers," etc.

I do recall reading an interview with Stewart where he said that song credit always went to the guy who first brought in the song. In the few cases where he and Sting share credit, it was because Sting refused to sing Stew's lyrics and re-wrote them. The rest of the time, Sting would bring in the songs and Stewart and Andy would then arrange them. You can get a sense of this with a song like "Shadows In The Rain" which appears on both a Police album (ZENYATTA MONDATTA) and one of Sting's solo albums (THE DREAM OF THE BLUE TURTLES). The latter is closer to the way it was originally written.

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By contrast, AC/DC splits their royalties (equally)

As do Van Halen, The Cure, Duran Duran, etc.

And, to muddy the waters even more (although it doesn't have anything to do with Crowded House), these royalties are considered such an important part of contracts and relationships with record companies/management, that Col. Parker almost always insisted on his artist, Elvis Presley, get co-writing credit for anything that he recorded, whether or not he had anything to do with the writing of it (except for famous cover songs that he did later in his career of course). This had nothing to do with ego but everything to do with publishing royalties. Elvis' recording your song was conditioned on you giving away half of the royalties, but few balked at this because half of A LOT of money is better than a whole of a little or none at all. And, believe it or not, his publisher, Freddie Bienstock, is still alive and well and dapper as ever (with the Picasso on the wall and everything).

And if you think that this is an archaic practice that died with the Presley empire, here's an interesting bit from Andy Partridge, who is writing an advice column in the Swindon Advertiser:

Q. I saw the piece in today's Advertiser about your Q&A on the music industry and would like to ask you for advice on some songs that I have written.
Originally, they were written for my own pleasure in the hope that one day I might put them to use in a band, but I am too busy to go down that route so I am thinking of selling them on.
How would I go about selling the songs that I have written to a producer/artist/label? Who would I approach and how should I present the song (i.e. barebones music, music & vocals, highly produced mix)?
How do songwriters get paid, is it on a royalty basis or do you just sell the rights? If so what are good terms of sale for a song?
Hope you can help, many thanks in advance,
DB

A. Dear ol' DB, selling songs these days is notoriously difficult.There was a time when a person could pen a tune and have it covered (recorded) by an artist and Bob's your uncle, or he's your uncle and your mum if you're from Penhill.
These days managers and artists pull the great "co-write" scam, which means they or their artists insist on changing a word of the lyric and getting involved in the creation of the song, even if they've never written anything before.
So why do they insist on hamstringing the professional writer this way? Yep, it's so they can take half of any profit from the publishing income.
A bit like expecting a great goal scoring performance from Wayne Rooney but hes got to have a complete amateur tied to his leg while he's doing it.
You can try demoing your songs and sending them in to a music publisher, but be warned, it's a 99.9% chance that you will hear nothing. Your songs will have to be frighteningly good to receive any attention, and if they are then be prepared to suffer the "co-write"scam.
Good luck, Andy

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/leisure/music/askandy/

I'm just glad to get some XTC into the conversation

Technically, it's really nice of the songwriter to share their royalties at all, IMO. Jeff Tweedy of Wilco is very much the main force behind the band. Without him, there would be no Wilco, period. The same can be said about Neil and Crowded House. Still, Tweedy is reportedly pretty generous with his royalties, and I'm sure Neil is the same way.

quote:

Originally posted by dave:
And, to muddy the waters even more (although it doesn't have anything to do with Crowded House), these royalties are considered such an important part of contracts and relationships with record companies/management, that Col. Parker almost always insisted on his artist, Elvis Presley, get co-writing credit for anything that he recorded,

Not record companies! Publishing companies. The two are different, very different. Record companies do not get a cut of publishing cash.

Michael Jackson does this as well, and it caused the fallout between mega famous and successful writer/producer Quincy Jones and Jackson, over some songs on the follow up to Thriller (sorry, not a jackson fan don't know what album that was). A young writer had co-written a significant part of what was to become a mega hit for Jackson with him and Quincy Jones. It was the guys first big gig, and Quincy Jones fought his corner for a cut of the writing royalties. Jackson refused, massive fallout resulted. Eventually the song went on the album and was released credited 50:50 Jackson and Qunicy. Quincy then split his share with the other writer, but never worked with michael jackson again. Said young writer went on to have loads of success with other people and still is. I wish i could remember everyones names and the track in question... sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by Sara:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by dave:
And, to muddy the waters even more (although it doesn't have anything to do with Crowded House), these royalties are considered such an important part of contracts and relationships with record companies/management, that Col. Parker almost always insisted on his artist, Elvis Presley, get co-writing credit for anything that he recorded,

Not record companies! Publishing companies. The two are different, very different. Record companies do not get a cut of publishing cash.

Well, I wrote this from the perspective of someone who lives in Nashville, where some of the record companies have their own publishing arms (Sony, Warner Chappell, Disney, EMI, Polygram). But it's not exactly true that record companies never get a cut of the songwriting royalties in the sense that they can negotiate the amount of mechanical royalties that they pay. IOW, there's a "statutory rate" that's been established, but record companies can negotiate down from there, so they might pay less for one artist than another. This in essense can add to their bottom line, which is almost the same thing as "taking a cut". And this comes into play when negotiating a contract with an artist (which is sort of what I meant when I included them). An example might be Elvis Presley vs. Joe Unknown Artist Blow. To entice Col. Parker to sign with my label, I might offer 100% of mechanical royalties because I want an artist that's going to sell a zillion records so I don't mind paying more. However, I might insist on only paying 75% of said royalties to Mr. Blow in order to help recoup start-up costs in jump-starting his career. Yeah, this is a back door way of sharing royalties, but it's worth mentioning.

However, I take your distinction and should have definitely included publishing companies, especially since record companies really don't have anything to do with performance royalties, unless their subsidiary happens to be the publishing company (but it's still a separate business). Neil has certainly been on both ends, being with Chrysalis Publishing and having his own publishing company (Roundhead Music) and working with independent companies (Mushroom Music) as well. This also muddies the waters, especially when a song is represented by multiple companies. Sinner, for example has this as its credits: PUBLISHERS: Roundhead Music, BMI; Wixen Music Publishing/Chrysalis Music Ltd., ASCAP. This covers both co-writers and each agency has responsibilities that are not only distinct but can also share responsibilities and income distribution, and can even have geographic limitations.

Thanks for pointing out that record companies don't directly share in the publishing credits per se.

quote:

Originally posted by dave:

quote:

Originally posted by Sara:

quote:

Originally posted by dave:
And, to muddy the waters even more (although it doesn't have anything to do with Crowded House), these royalties are considered such an important part of contracts and relationships with record companies/management, that Col. Parker almost always insisted on his artist, Elvis Presley, get co-writing credit for anything that he recorded,

Not record companies! Publishing companies. The two are different, very different. Record companies do not get a cut of publishing cash.

Well, I wrote this from the perspective of someone who lives in Nashville, where some of the record companies have their own publishing arms (Sony, Warner Chappell, Disney, EMI, Polygram). But it's not exactly true that record companies never get a cut of the songwriting royalties in the sense that they can negotiate the amount of mechanical royalties that they pay. IOW, there's a "statutory rate" that's been established, but record companies can negotiate down from there, so they might pay less for one artist than another. This in essense can add to their bottom line, which is almost the same thing as "taking a cut". And this comes into play when negotiating a contract with an artist (which is sort of what I meant when I included them). An example might be Elvis Presley vs. Joe Unknown Artist Blow. To entice Col. Parker to sign with my label, I might offer 100% of mechanical royalties because I want an artist that's going to sell a zillion records so I don't mind paying more. However, I might insist on only paying 75% of said royalties to Mr. Blow in order to help recoup start-up costs in jump-starting his career. Yeah, this is a back door way of sharing royalties, but it's worth mentioning.

However, I take your distinction and should have definitely included publishing companies, especially since record companies really don't have anything to do with performance royalties, unless their subsidiary happens to be the publishing company (but it's still a separate business). Neil has certainly been on both ends, being with Chrysalis Publishing and having his own publishing company (Roundhead Music) and working with independent companies (Mushroom Music) as well. This also muddies the waters, especially when a song is represented by multiple companies. Sinner, for example has this as its credits: PUBLISHERS: Roundhead Music, BMI; Wixen Music Publishing/Chrysalis Music Ltd., ASCAP. This covers both co-writers and each agency has responsibilities that are not only distinct but can also share responsibilities and income distribution, and can even have geographic limitations.

Thanks for pointing out that record companies don't directly share in the publishing credits per se.

Jesus, if you really want to get in to that much depth, then yeah, but in the UK we pay a set rate with the MCPS agreed by the BPI (I can't remember them off the top of my head but the figures for Video, Recordings and Digital were 5%, 8% and 15% not necessarily in that order, and it might have changed in the last couple of years), we hardly ever negotiate with the MCPS on an artist by artist basis, and in this day and age of 360 deals, thats become even less likely to happen (instead, we'll just want the publishing as well, but to get the publishing as well you need to have a publishing company set up and not all the majors do anymore... sonybmg fr'instance are in the process of trying to set one up after the BMG half sold their one to Universal and Sony want to keep Sony/ATV as theirs and theirs alone - when the companies merged, they didn't merge their publishing businesses, just their record ones, and in Japan they didn't merge anything at all).

Glad you do things different over there. Here, the record companies have their fingers in almost every piece of the pie.

Here, the "statutory rate" is set by Congress, but it's not the absolute that the term implies. In fact, it's pretty much a ceiling figure, not a minimum. That's why record companies can use royalty rates when they negotiate new contracts.

It's the ole 'merican way, I guess.

Sorry I ruffled your feathers, though.