Bootleg Copyright Question

thunderDAN · July 2008

When Pearl Jam sells a bootleg with Hide Your Love Away on it do they have to pay royalties to Michael Jackson?

gusturtle · July 2008

no, but the beatles might receive something. to my knowledge, michael jackson was never in the beatles, unless he went by the name pete best at one point in his life.

ryanrunning · July 2008

frogwater wrote:

no, but the beatles might receive something. to my knowledge, michael jackson was never in the beatles, unless he went by the name pete best at one point in his life.

he might because he owns the rights to almost half the beatles songs, but i'm not exactly sure

Roeghmann · July 2008

Mr. Jackson hav bought the right to royalities for the Beatles songcatalouge

gusturtle · July 2008

Röeghmann wrote:

Mr. Jackson hav bought the right to royalities for the Beatles songcatalouge

d'oh, my bad. i forgot about that!

Travelar · July 2008

I'm pretty sure that McCartney owns rights to most of the Beatles catalog now. I read Michael Jackson had to sell a lot of it because he likes molesting young boys and needed to pay his defense bills.

Brain Of E · July 2008

yes, not sure who they pay, but they do pay someone, even for those tags like Save it for later.

wendy wrocks · July 2008

if its a bootleg does anyone get royalties? and are "bootlegs" you can buy truly "bootlegs" or unofficial concert releases?

Brain Of E · July 2008

yes they are official live albums if you want to be a dick about it. they just call them "bootlegs" to try to be clever.

McJuicy · July 2008

fyi, michael jackson had to sell his rights to the beatles catalogue

kaosfactor · July 2008

That's an interesting one. I've studied a bit of IP law, and never thought to look for that specific question. Maybe it is covered by the ASCAP fees to perform it? A recording and the underlying song exist on separate copyrights. It is possible that the right to perform it does cover the right to reproduce one's own performance. I'll see if I can find anything on the topic.

markymark550 · July 2008

For an official live recording, I believe the band has to pay royalties to ASCAP (or other related organization like BMI, etc.). ASCAP basically acts as a royalty collector and then distributes the appropriate amount to the copyright owner.

So, for the example used, say ASCAP collects royalties for the Beatles' catalog. To release "Hide Your Love Away" on an official live recording, Pearl Jam pays ASCAP something like 8 or 9 cents per disc that has the song. ASCAP keeps a portion of that as their payment for recovering the royalty and then distributes the rest to the copyright owner, in this case Wacko Jacko (if he does indeed own the whole Beatles catalog).

thunderDAN · July 2008

McJuicy wrote:

fyi, michael jackson had to sell his rights to the beatles catalogue

actually he didn't from what I believe. I think he actually purchased more rights to music and owns the rights to some of Eminem's songs as well as Beck and Shakira. I'll see if I can find a recent article, but I'm about 95% sure he still owns them all

Edit: Ok Jackson still owns the music rights to the Beatles, but they are collateral for a secured loan he has out for roughly $300million dollars. He basically secured a loan with the agreement that if he defaulted Sony would be able to take the rights to the Beatles songs. So in this case, he still owns the rights.

N2Deep · July 2008

thunderDAN wrote:

I think he actually purchased more rights to music and owns the rights to some of Eminem's songs as well as Beck and Shakira. I'll see if I can find a recent article, but I'm about 95% sure he still owns them all

Shakira's hips don't lie...or so I've been told.

JOEJOEJOE · July 2008

Each venue has an Ascap/Sesac/BMI license, so the owners of the copyright gets paid thru one of those entities for the public performance of a song (same goes for songs played on the radio, at sporting events or at dance clubs).

In terms of music released on record, the entity releasing the record pays "mechanical royalties" to those who own the publishing rights. The rate is 9.1 cents per song, so if the band does a cover, they pay the owner of the publishing rights 9.1 cents for every cd they press or sell via download. It is called a mechanical royalty because the royalties are paid for every copy of the recording that has been mechanically reproduced (such as an lp, cassette or cd)

Thus, if a record label prints 100,000 units, they must pay the royalty on all of the units, even if they never get sold. In Europe, the mechanical royalties are only paid on units sold.

Most bands sign publishing deals with companies such as EMI or Warner/Chappell music. These companies usually get 25% of the royalties in exchange for their administering of the royalty collection process.

As an example, assumming a record has 10 songs, the mechanical royalties per record would be 91 cents. 1/2 of that is the songwriters share (some bands split this, while other bands divvy it up based on who actually wrote the song. The other 1/2 is the publishing share, and this is usually split between the band and the publishing company. The band has an incentive to sign a publishing deal because they usually receive a chunky advance from the publishing deal which allows them to survive financially while they are getting the band off the ground. If the band never sells many records, they are not on the hook to pay back the advance to the publishing company.

(If only I was this well-versed in tax law!)

Bootleg Copyright Question

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