The Verve got their royalties back. Let's stream to a billion!!

This part is confusing.

When the song first came out, who benefited monetarily from that? I'm assuming the Verve? At what point does it change to "royalties"?

 

Such a great song. I think about them getting jobbed and then basically disappearing every time I hear it.

 

That was always one of the most absurd copyright rulings, especially in music.

 

The Freshman is such a great song!!!

 

Wow I never knew this, sucks that it went down that way.

 

When a song is played on the radio, only the songwriter gets paid. The performer does not get paid. That is why song writing credits are so important. In this case, the rolling stones got paid.

This is the case with that Sam Smith song. Tom Petty's estate gets paid even thought he song doesn't sound anything like the Tom Petty Song.

 

Radio = what now? Streaming, too? And songwriter = what? Just the lyrics? Or the music? Or what?

 

The Stones and especially their manager were militant a-holes when it came to copyright infringement. They sued anybody (and lost a whole lot of cases) that had a remotely similar riff or sound or anything.

 

Wait, haven't heard about his one. Admittedly don't know who Sam Smith is. Got any comparative samples?

My favorite for chuckles was always Vanilla Ice trying to describe the difference b/t Ice Ice Baby and Under Pressure.

 

Here's another:

 

Radio and streaming are the same thing. If you wrote the music or lyrics, you are the songwriter. The money gets split.

 

Comments section has interesting bits about the backstory and the Stones (lack of) involvment.

 

Here is an article on how royalties on songs played on the radio/streamed worked. This is why Max Martin is the one of the richest people in Music and most people don't know who he is.

https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/musician-tips/didnt-know-radio-royalties/

 

Beat me to it, haha

 

Whoever's listed as the songwriters gets the royalties. If you write the lyrics or the music you are considered a writer. Thats partially the reason why Buddy Holly was broke because his manager finagled himself a songwriting credit on The Crickets singles although he didn't write anything.

As far as Streaming..it pays pennies for royalties. It's a terrible deal for the artists.
Artists can make 6 cents per radio airplay, but at most only about a 10th of that per stream.

for instance, it is estimated that Taylor Swift made around $310,000 for 46,300,000 streams of Shake it off. If she had that many plays on the radio, it would equal $2,700,000.

Granted, Taylor Swift isn't going to get 46 million airplays on the radio, so who this really hurts is the lesser known artists. The small groups are the ones getting killed on this. Especially since the loss of album sales due to streaming is staggering. The artists can sometimes make up to 10 cents per album (depending on the deal and the songwriters).

 

OK, I have heard that Sam Smith song, or part of it at least, before and at no point did I ever think of Tom Petty.

I can totally hear the Coldplay v Satriani one.

Wait so you're saying the Stones ripped off this guy first?

 

This song was a massive hit right before Napster hit the world -- The Verve lost a small fortune not securing rights to that sample.

Sidenote: I thought Tom Petty let the Sam Smith thing slide.

Edit I didn't realize RA thought he had the rights of the instrumental.

Ashcroft had written the lyrics, but the instrumental elements of the song borrowed from an orchestral version of The Stones’ “The Last Time.” Ashcroft had permission from Decca, the record label that released the orchestral version of “The Last Time,” to use some of the instrumentals in exchange for half the royalties of “Bitter Sweet Symphony.”

But Stones manager Allen Klein sued The Verve for plagiarism just after “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was released because he thought they had used more of “The Last Time” than they’d agreed on.

A 1997 settlement gave Jagger and Richards songwriter credits, and handed over royalties to Klein’s ABKCO Records.