Sting makes $2,000 per day from Every Breath You Take which is 100% of the royalties.
He gets virtually all the royalties from Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You which sold 7 million even though he does not feature anywhere on the track only the guitar riff which was written by Summers.
To be fair Sting wrote the vocal melody which is copied by Puff. And Summers is just playing arpeggio notes over Sting's chord sequence. See above post about arrangement vs song/text.
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
Does she sing the ‘one black morning..’ part?
That is the sexiest singing voice ever recorded.
Sting makes $2,000 per day from Every Breath You Take which is 100% of the royalties.
He gets virtually all the royalties from Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You which sold 7 million even though he does not feature anywhere on the track only the guitar riff which was written by Summers.
To be fair Sting wrote the vocal melody which is copied by Puff. And Summers is just playing arpeggio notes over Sting's chord sequence. See above post about arrangement vs song/text.
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
I thought his voice sounded a bit high.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board
Sting makes $2,000 per day from Every Breath You Take which is 100% of the royalties.
He gets virtually all the royalties from Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You which sold 7 million even though he does not feature anywhere on the track only the guitar riff which was written by Summers.
To be fair Sting wrote the vocal melody which is copied by Puff. And Summers is just playing arpeggio notes over Sting's chord sequence. See above post about arrangement vs song/text.
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
I thought his voice sounded a bit high.
I think 112 (male R&B group) provided backing vocals too, to be fair.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.
Yeah, I'd consider that an important part of the song. It's a similar situation with the Jam, Weller took sole credit for most of their output but I'd be surprised if Bruce and Rick never chipped a few musical ideas in. Then you hear about the bloke who wrote and played the sax riff on Baker Street receiving a one-off fee for his efforts while Gerry Rafferty raked it in for years on the strength of the two short verses he wrote.
Tube Station alone deserves an equal split. I couldn't believe that Weller wrote that bassline.
We're back to the lyric/melody means royalties argument. A lot of bands split the royalties 50% for the band, 50% for the writers. That seems a fairer way.
Yeah, I'd consider that an important part of the song. It's a similar situation with the Jam, Weller took sole credit for most of their output but I'd be surprised if Bruce and Rick never chipped a few musical ideas in. Then you hear about the bloke who wrote and played the sax riff on Baker Street receiving a one-off fee for his efforts while Gerry Rafferty raked it in for years on the strength of the two short verses he wrote.
Tube Station alone deserves an equal split. I couldn't believe that Weller wrote that bassline.
We're back to the lyric/melody means royalties argument. A lot of bands split the royalties 50% for the band, 50% for the writers. That seems a fairer way.
Equal or nothing, I say.
I think I posted this earlier but Madness, who have 7 songwriters, split it 50% songwriter 50% band.
Sting makes $2,000 per day from Every Breath You Take which is 100% of the royalties.
He gets virtually all the royalties from Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You which sold 7 million even though he does not feature anywhere on the track only the guitar riff which was written by Summers.
To be fair Sting wrote the vocal melody which is copied by Puff. And Summers is just playing arpeggio notes over Sting's chord sequence. See above post about arrangement vs song/text.
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
Summers gets nothing 0% of Royalties even though his guitar riff is sampled in the PD track.
AND, it's the first thing anyone recognizes from that song. It's as much a hook as anything else, and deserves equal splits.
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.
Sting makes $2,000 per day from Every Breath You Take which is 100% of the royalties.
He gets virtually all the royalties from Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You which sold 7 million even though he does not feature anywhere on the track only the guitar riff which was written by Summers.
To be fair Sting wrote the vocal melody which is copied by Puff. And Summers is just playing arpeggio notes over Sting's chord sequence. See above post about arrangement vs song/text.
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
Summers gets nothing 0% of Royalties even though his guitar riff is sampled in the PD track.
AND, it's the first thing anyone recognizes from that song. It's as much a hook as anything else, and deserves equal splits.
None of that stuff compares to the atrocity of royalties on original rock n roll songs. Alan Freed, for example, had a writing credit on "Maybellene" as part of his promotion of Chuck Berry. Copyright and royalties has a long and disgusting history.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
To be fair Sting wrote the vocal melody which is copied by Puff. And Summers is just playing arpeggio notes over Sting's chord sequence. See above post about arrangement vs song/text.
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
Summers gets nothing 0% of Royalties even though his guitar riff is sampled in the PD track.
AND, it's the first thing anyone recognizes from that song. It's as much a hook as anything else, and deserves equal splits.
None of that stuff compares to the atrocity of royalties on original rock n roll songs. Alan Freed, for example, had a writing credit on "Maybellene" as part of his promotion of Chuck Berry. Copyright and royalties has a long and disgusting history.
And continues to. Things being the way they are because "this is how it is" or "that's how we've always done it" is not appropriate.
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.
I fully agree and will go even further conceptually that audiences play such a vital role in making some songs classic that they deserve to enter public domain. That is, audiences function as creators in their own way, generating narratives of what is culturally significant. I've mentioned before that idea of some songs being shortcuts in movies for establishing time and place (e.g., that fucking "For What It's Worth" as part of any 1960s movie that deals with youth). The listening public elevated those songs to that status, so why are they still privately held and rewarded?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
The vocal hook is copied by Faith Evans, not Puff, idiot.
Summers gets nothing 0% of Royalties even though his guitar riff is sampled in the PD track.
AND, it's the first thing anyone recognizes from that song. It's as much a hook as anything else, and deserves equal splits.
None of that stuff compares to the atrocity of royalties on original rock n roll songs. Alan Freed, for example, had a writing credit on "Maybellene" as part of his promotion of Chuck Berry. Copyright and royalties has a long and disgusting history.
And continues to. Things being the way they are because "this is how it is" or "that's how we've always done it" is not appropriate.
Your hostility to tradition warms my heart.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
Summers gets nothing 0% of Royalties even though his guitar riff is sampled in the PD track.
AND, it's the first thing anyone recognizes from that song. It's as much a hook as anything else, and deserves equal splits.
None of that stuff compares to the atrocity of royalties on original rock n roll songs. Alan Freed, for example, had a writing credit on "Maybellene" as part of his promotion of Chuck Berry. Copyright and royalties has a long and disgusting history.
And continues to. Things being the way they are because "this is how it is" or "that's how we've always done it" is not appropriate.
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.
I fully agree and will go even further conceptually that audiences play such a vital role in making some songs classic that they deserve to enter public domain. That is, audiences function as creators in their own way, generating narratives of what is culturally significant. I've mentioned before that idea of some songs being shortcuts in movies for establishing time and place (e.g., that fucking "For What It's Worth" as part of any 1960s movie that deals with youth). The listening public elevated those songs to that status, so why are they still privately held and rewarded?
I hadn't thought of it in that way but it makes sense. As for the reason that they are still privately held, in this economic system, the songwriter goes hungry without their own output to rely on like any other job, I suppose.
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.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
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.