The Clash songwriting credits after London Calling

[Heston]

People can run their bands however they want, but the lyrics/melody thing is archaic and needs a re-examination. It causes friction, and doesn't make sense in the context of pop music (see my a cappella comment). I've never thought that songwriting was such a pain in the ass that I deserved more money for writing a melody than does the drummer for coming up with the perfect beat to go along with it, or the guitarist for coming up with the hook that makes the song. A band should be an equal partnership with everyone putting in what they able to in order to finish a song, if not start it. Otherwise you have a solo artist with a backing band and should be honest about it if that's the case, starting with paying salaries to the other musicians. A band is either a collective effort, or an employer/employee relationship.

To be fair, I've been playing devil's advocate a bit with some of my comments, I'm not sure where I stand on this to be honest. Should a drummer who lays down a generic beat get the same slice of the pie as someone who slaves over a lyric/tune for weeks on end? I suppose every song is different and has a different writing dynamic. But aren't musicians paid performance royalties separate to writing royalties? I know they are smaller but it's still a recognition of their work.

[Dr. Medulla]

Another great argument against how copyright and royalties work can be found in Dave Marsh's book Louie Louie. From its inspiration and evolution to the buying and selling of the copyright, the history of that song demonstrates that the system is all a bunch of legal fiction.

Have you seen the film about Solomon Linda who wrote the original song for The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It tells the story of how his family tried to get a slice of tens of millions Disney make from the song.
Very sad story.

Never heard of it. All that shit flies in the face of basic fair play and justice.

[Kory]

People can run their bands however they want, but the lyrics/melody thing is archaic and needs a re-examination. It causes friction, and doesn't make sense in the context of pop music (see my a cappella comment). I've never thought that songwriting was such a pain in the ass that I deserved more money for writing a melody than does the drummer for coming up with the perfect beat to go along with it, or the guitarist for coming up with the hook that makes the song. A band should be an equal partnership with everyone putting in what they able to in order to finish a song, if not start it. Otherwise you have a solo artist with a backing band and should be honest about it if that's the case, starting with paying salaries to the other musicians. A band is either a collective effort, or an employer/employee relationship.

To be fair, I've been playing devil's advocate a bit with some of my comments, I'm not sure where I stand on this to be honest. Should a drummer who lays down a generic beat get the same slice of the pie as someone who slaves over a lyric/tune for weeks on end? I suppose every song is different and has a different writing dynamic. But aren't musicians paid performance royalties separate to writing royalties? I know they are smaller but it's still a recognition of their work.

From my point of view, I don't see it as slaving. If writing music is that much of a pain, that person might be in the wrong business. A generic beat is called for just as often as generic lyrics which make up the bulk of pop music, and that drummer was there to rehearse and help realize the song in its completed form in any case. If people don't like the generic beat they can ask him to come up with something more interesting. If that causes a problem then that's what band meetings are for. Otherwise they can pay the drummer to do exactly what they want and stop pretending to be a band.

Performance royalties are fine, but it's all a matter of how much you want to rub your bandmates the wrong way, I suppose. Somebody who wrote some lyrics and melody to a song with a crazy recognizable bassline and gets a little bit extra when the bassist doesn't is not going to cause a warm feeling.

[Red Angel]

A speech that brings excesses like this, only a squalid question of money!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... rs-890139/

Everyone who plays a note thinks to compose, but it is not like that, I repeat think about what happens in jazz. Then everyone has their point of view ....

[dave202]

Another great argument against how copyright and royalties work can be found in Dave Marsh's book Louie Louie. From its inspiration and evolution to the buying and selling of the copyright, the history of that song demonstrates that the system is all a bunch of legal fiction.

Have you seen the film about Solomon Linda who wrote the original song for The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It tells the story of how his family tried to get a slice of tens of millions Disney make from the song.
Very sad story.

The matter was resolved, the family did get something out of it.
A trial was scheduled to start on 21 February 2006, but just before the trial, a settlement was reached between Linda's estate, Disney and Abilene Music Company, the true defendant of the litigation, who had granted an indemnity to Disney when it licensed use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in The Lion King. The primary outcomes of the settlement were:
• The estate was to receive payment for past uses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and an entitlement to future royalties from its worldwide use.
• "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was to be acknowledged as derived from "Mbube".
• Solomon Linda was to be acknowledged as a co-composer of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and to be designated as such in the future.
• A trust was to be formed to administer the estate’s copyright in "Mbube" and to receive on their behalf the payments due from the use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

[101Walterton]

Another great argument against how copyright and royalties work can be found in Dave Marsh's book Louie Louie. From its inspiration and evolution to the buying and selling of the copyright, the history of that song demonstrates that the system is all a bunch of legal fiction.

Have you seen the film about Solomon Linda who wrote the original song for The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It tells the story of how his family tried to get a slice of tens of millions Disney make from the song.
Very sad story.

The matter was resolved, the family did get something out of it.
A trial was scheduled to start on 21 February 2006, but just before the trial, a settlement was reached between Linda's estate, Disney and Abilene Music Company, the true defendant of the litigation, who had granted an indemnity to Disney when it licensed use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in The Lion King. The primary outcomes of the settlement were:
• The estate was to receive payment for past uses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and an entitlement to future royalties from its worldwide use.
• "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was to be acknowledged as derived from "Mbube".
• Solomon Linda was to be acknowledged as a co-composer of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and to be designated as such in the future.
• A trust was to be formed to administer the estate’s copyright in "Mbube" and to receive on their behalf the payments due from the use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

It was next to nothing. From memory they got something like $400,000? (lawyers took a whack of that) ( bearing in mind it has made tens of millions. And I think the royalties share was only South Africa. They did not get a slice of Disney’s pie.

[dave202]

Another great argument against how copyright and royalties work can be found in Dave Marsh's book Louie Louie. From its inspiration and evolution to the buying and selling of the copyright, the history of that song demonstrates that the system is all a bunch of legal fiction.

Have you seen the film about Solomon Linda who wrote the original song for The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It tells the story of how his family tried to get a slice of tens of millions Disney make from the song.
Very sad story.

The matter was resolved, the family did get something out of it.
A trial was scheduled to start on 21 February 2006, but just before the trial, a settlement was reached between Linda's estate, Disney and Abilene Music Company, the true defendant of the litigation, who had granted an indemnity to Disney when it licensed use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in The Lion King. The primary outcomes of the settlement were:
• The estate was to receive payment for past uses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and an entitlement to future royalties from its worldwide use.
• "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was to be acknowledged as derived from "Mbube".
• Solomon Linda was to be acknowledged as a co-composer of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and to be designated as such in the future.
• A trust was to be formed to administer the estate’s copyright in "Mbube" and to receive on their behalf the payments due from the use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

It was next to nothing. From memory they got something like $400,000? (lawyers took a whack of that) ( bearing in mind it has made tens of millions. And I think the royalties share was only South Africa. They did not get a slice of Disney’s pie.

It's hard to tell, since the settlement was out of court. This is from The Financial Times in 2018, "Lawyers got involved. We don’t know who’d have won, because Disney made a settlement in 2006. Nor do we know the terms, but we do know it involved back and future payments and that it was life-changing for the family. Sixty-seven years after Linda composed his masterpiece, his name was attached to it and it seemed good things do happen, sometimes and eventually."

[101Walterton]

Another great argument against how copyright and royalties work can be found in Dave Marsh's book Louie Louie. From its inspiration and evolution to the buying and selling of the copyright, the history of that song demonstrates that the system is all a bunch of legal fiction.

Have you seen the film about Solomon Linda who wrote the original song for The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It tells the story of how his family tried to get a slice of tens of millions Disney make from the song.
Very sad story.

The matter was resolved, the family did get something out of it.
A trial was scheduled to start on 21 February 2006, but just before the trial, a settlement was reached between Linda's estate, Disney and Abilene Music Company, the true defendant of the litigation, who had granted an indemnity to Disney when it licensed use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in The Lion King. The primary outcomes of the settlement were:
• The estate was to receive payment for past uses of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and an entitlement to future royalties from its worldwide use.
• "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was to be acknowledged as derived from "Mbube".
• Solomon Linda was to be acknowledged as a co-composer of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and to be designated as such in the future.
• A trust was to be formed to administer the estate’s copyright in "Mbube" and to receive on their behalf the payments due from the use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

It was next to nothing. From memory they got something like $400,000? (lawyers took a whack of that) ( bearing in mind it has made tens of millions. And I think the royalties share was only South Africa. They did not get a slice of Disney’s pie.

It's hard to tell, since the settlement was out of court. This is from The Financial Times in 2018, "Lawyers got involved. We don’t know who’d have won, because Disney made a settlement in 2006. Nor do we know the terms, but we do know it involved back and future payments and that it was life-changing for the family. Sixty-seven years after Linda composed his masterpiece, his name was attached to it and it seemed good things do happen, sometimes and eventually."

At the end of the film they said exactly what the family got I can’t remember exactly as I said above. The family only tried to get the royalties for South Africa they knew they had no chance getting the American pie so they went after Disney’s SA handlers.
Life changing when you live in a SA township doesn’t mean much.

[101Walterton]

This is the film.

[dave202]

This is the film.

Thanks, I'll watch it.

[Red Angel]

I read somewhere that Allen Ginsberg wrote his part on "Ghetto Defendant"

[Silent Majority]

I read somewhere that Allen Ginsberg wrote his part on "Ghetto Defendant"

He did.

[101Walterton]

I read somewhere that Allen Ginsberg wrote his part on "Ghetto Defendant"

Does he get royalties from CR then?

[Silent Majority]

I read somewhere that Allen Ginsberg wrote his part on "Ghetto Defendant"

Does he get royalties from CR then?

Well, he's in Hell, so no.

[101Walterton]

I read somewhere that Allen Ginsberg wrote his part on "Ghetto Defendant"

Does he get royalties from CR then?

Well, he's in Hell, so no.

Realise that but presume his estate does though.