Who gets royalties on past records when personnel of groups change?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I was thinking about the Dixie Hummingbirds and all the changes in personnel they had. Then about the Mills Brothers. Both groups are still going. And all those other vocal groups whose personnel changed quite a bit, over and over.

But royalties would have been due on past recordings made with different personnel. Do the record companies pay the previous (correct) members on the records they made? Or do they just give the money to the manager and let him/her decide who's supposed to get a share?

OK, some groups were/are OWNED by someone. The Inkspots and the Drifters fell into that category. I'm not talking about that kind of thing.

SO... anyone know?

MG

[JSngry]

I think the group gets paid for making the record, that's it, unless a special deal is in effect.

Otherwsie, royalties get paid on writing and publishing.

Commercials/jingles/etc. that's a different structure. There, the performers gets paid on a per-play basis.

As far as revolving-door bands, though, there would have to be a language in the contract to get anybody paid more than the session fee. And I'm sure that for groups with star poer, there is.

That's been my experience, anyway.

[Ken Dryden]

I forget which country group had a founding member sue her former partners because she said she had an agreement about future royalties. That would seem odd if she was no longer contributing as a performer or songwriter of CDs made after she left. I never remember hearing how it was resolved.

A bigger question, with all of the sloppy mistakes about composer credits on recordings, do the labels actually pay royalties to the correct songwriter or his/her estate? I've lost track of the number of times I've seen Bill Evans credited for Nardis or Quiet Now, though most of them are European releases that either claim expired copyrights or just don't bother with such trivial stuff...

[medjuck]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

I think the group gets paid for making the record, that's it, unless a special deal is in effect.

Otherwsie, royalties get paid on writing and publishing.

Commercials/jingles/etc. that's a different structure. There, the performers gets paid on a per-play basis.

As far as revolving-door bands, though, there would have to be a language in the contract to get anybody paid more than the session fee. And I'm sure that for groups with star poer, there is.

That's been my experience, anyway.

Royalties to performers depend on their contracts.  In jazz usually the leader of the group gets them unless the group is a co-operative.  Sometimes the royalties go to a group or other legal entity.  I have a  vague memory   (I have many vague memories) that Bill Wyman still owns a small piece of the Rolling Stones. 

[duaneiac]

I still assume that only those musicians (or their estates) who have the most dogged accountants and lawyers working for them get paid their due royalties since the recording companies certainly hire the most dogged accountants and lawyers to "prove" that no royalties are due. 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

1 hour ago, duaneiac said:

I still assume that only those musicians (or their estates) who have the most dogged accountants and lawyers working for them get paid their due royalties since the recording companies certainly hire the most dogged accountants and lawyers to "prove" that no royalties are due. 

Almost certainly true, I dare say.

MG

[mjzee]

Not sure how many groups earn ongoing royalties on recordings, especially from the Fifties and before.  Could be they were just paid for the session.  Songwriters, of course, continue to earn royalties.

Nice to see you back, MG.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I dare say the Mills Brothers did as they had a good deal of market power. They kept on adding relatives as older ones retired. But the reissues on LP...?

MG

[JSngry]

"The Mills Brothers" were the leader. How they divvied that up...business, contracts, etc. Which were drawn up by...who?

I'm sure that the older they got, the more leverage they had, but I don't know that for a fact...but they did record less as the years went by. But they still had a genuine hit record with "Cab Driver", and when was that, 1968-36? 1967? And that record with Basie, oh my, that one did pretty good (I hope!).

[Teasing the Korean]

After the songwriting and the publishing royalties,  there is a tiny percentage left for the artist.  How that is distributed depends on a lot of factors, e.g., group members having equal shares in the "corporation," or being paid a weekly salary.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thanks TTK.

 

MG