To then die without a will...

It was a stupid fight from the beginning, throughout, and to the end.

emesem said:

To then die without a will...

Honestly I think for the first decade of his career he didn't even know what masters were, a lot of musicians back then never even thought about masters. And a lot of musicians back then didn't want to bother with masters even if they knew what they were, that's administrative stuff that was considered the record company's responsibility. In the 90s he was trying to start a family and wanted to build security for his offspring, that obviously didn't turn out to well. I think it was also an "ownership" thing, it bothered him that technically, another company owned an important piece of his music history.

weirdozmedia said:

emesem said:

To then die without a will...

Honestly I think for the first decade of his career he didn't even know what masters were, a lot of musicians back then never even thought about masters. And a lot of musicians back then didn't want to bother with masters even if they knew what they were, that's administrative stuff that was considered the record company's responsibility. In the 90s he was trying to start a family and wanted to build security for his offspring, that obviously didn't turn out to well. I think it was also an "ownership" thing, it bothered him that technically, another company owned an important piece of his music history.

Exactly. This wasn't some manufactured pop music that no one cares about. This is in every single way HIS music and HE should own it.

emesem said:

To then die without a will...

this is why I refuse to believe there isn't one. His team had to, legally speaking, have some kind of contingency plan to ensure that if something happened to Prince in the process of fighting for them, WB couldn't swoop back in and take them back forever. It's just inconceivable that they did not.

endiadj said:

weirdozmedia said:

Honestly I think for the first decade of his career he didn't even know what masters were, a lot of musicians back then never even thought about masters. And a lot of musicians back then didn't want to bother with masters even if they knew what they were, that's administrative stuff that was considered the record company's responsibility. In the 90s he was trying to start a family and wanted to build security for his offspring, that obviously didn't turn out to well. I think it was also an "ownership" thing, it bothered him that technically, another company owned an important piece of his music history.

Exactly. This wasn't some manufactured pop music that no one cares about. This is in every single way HIS music and HE should own it.

To a certain extent I guess I can see both sides. I think he owned all of his publishing from around 1999 on, whenever he established his own publishing company, and that's where the big value really is. If anybody covers a Prince song, 100% of the royalties go back to Prince (for writing the song). The master is basically what the record company was paying for in the first place - just the actual recording itself. If he hadn't agreed to those terms they would've had less incentive to invest millions of dollars and he may have not had a career to begin with.

emesem said:

To then die without a will...

thats why I think there is a will they just havent found it yet.

funksterr said:

It was a stupid fight from the beginning, throughout, and to the end.

That might be the stupidest comment I've ever read

phoenixrising said:

In an interview he said that he didn't own purple rain or when doves cry, and he was the one who wrote it and played the instruments and sand on it...so why shouldn't he own it. The Beatles don't own their hits and sir Paul won't for another couple of years. The stones don't own their early hits. It's the way a band got signed ...Prince fought to change that system, that type of contract. I forget the length of time but after many decade an artist gets back the rights to their songs. Prince didn't want his songs used in commercials or movies without his permission. He also didn't want other artists recording his songs once he put that song out to the public. He felt he did the song, now move on

From what I understand McCartney/Lennon always owned half their publishing, which is standard when you sign a publishing deal (publisher gets 50%, songwriter gets 50%). That's one of the smart things Prince did early on though, is make his own publishing company so that he kept 100% of his publishing - he just didn't own the recordings of Purple Rain & Doves Cry, but he 100% owned the songs themselves.

The Stones early stuff was mostly covering other people's songs, which might be why they wouldn't own them. I think they did also have a shady manager who screwed them out of some money.

[Edited 4/25/16 15:37pm]

Thizz said:

funksterr said:

It was a stupid fight from the beginning, throughout, and to the end.

That might be the stupidest comment I've ever read

Thank you, you took the words right out of my mouth.

phoenixrising said:

In an interview he said that he didn't own purple rain or when doves cry, and he was the one who wrote it and played the instruments and sand on it...so why shouldn't he own it. The Beatles don't own their hits and sir Paul won't for another couple of years. The stones don't own their early hits. It's the way a band got signed ...Prince fought to change that system, that type of contract. I forget the length of time but after many decade an artist gets back the rights to their songs. Prince didn't want his songs used in commercials or movies without his permission. He also didn't want other artists recording his songs once he put that song out to the public. He felt he did the song, now move on

I know that MJ owned the Beatles catalog but...if Paul McCartney does not own them, how come he is so incredibly rich these days?

emesem said:

phoenixrising said:

In an interview he said that he didn't own purple rain or when doves cry, and he was the one who wrote it and played the instruments and sand on it...so why shouldn't he own it. The Beatles don't own their hits and sir Paul won't for another couple of years. The stones don't own their early hits. It's the way a band got signed ...Prince fought to change that system, that type of contract. I forget the length of time but after many decade an artist gets back the rights to their songs. Prince didn't want his songs used in commercials or movies without his permission. He also didn't want other artists recording his songs once he put that song out to the public. He felt he did the song, now move on

There are a few flaws in this argument.

First, Prince got his earlier catalog back a couple of years ago or so (maybe more?) once the For You and Prince albums copyright expired with the record company. Part of the remasters deal from 2014 was that he got more of his masters back Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, and more,while agreeing to remaster them for a staggered re-release (which we are sorta seeing the first two of those this month and next month).

The time of ownership reversal is 30 or 35 years, when the ownership goes back to the artist.

The Beatles do own their stuff, but not in full. Not since MJ bought it out from under Paul. They own it partly, as noted earlier by another user here. The Stones could easily buy their early catalog back, if they really wanted to (and who's to say they don't already?).

Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles both owned their stuff from early, early on. And that was when it was unheard of for an artist to own their masters. MJ gained control of his stuff early on as well. The idea of ownership wasn't new, it was just highlighted by Prince's fight.

He never said he didn't want others recording his songs. He did argue against the compulsory licensing. However, he also said in 1998 that when people have a good heart and goal about it, it's fine. It's just when people want a "piece of the purple pie", for the sake of it, that he objected. He also objected when folks changed his lyrics (I think he talked abou Ginuwine's "When Doves Cry", if memory serves).

KoolEaze said:

phoenixrising said:

In an interview he said that he didn't own purple rain or when doves cry, and he was the one who wrote it and played the instruments and sand on it...so why shouldn't he own it. The Beatles don't own their hits and sir Paul won't for another couple of years. The stones don't own their early hits. It's the way a band got signed ...Prince fought to change that system, that type of contract. I forget the length of time but after many decade an artist gets back the rights to their songs. Prince didn't want his songs used in commercials or movies without his permission. He also didn't want other artists recording his songs once he put that song out to the public. He felt he did the song, now move on

I know that MJ owned the Beatles catalog but...if Paul McCartney does not own them, how come he is so incredibly rich these days?

You realize Paul McCartney has had 45+ year career after The Beatles right?

TrivialPursuit said:

while agreeing to remaster them for a staggered re-release (which we are sorta seeing the first two of those this month and next month).

What are we seeing? I feel like I've missed something and obviously have... lol

Thizz said:

KoolEaze said:

I know that MJ owned the Beatles catalog but...if Paul McCartney does not own them, how come he is so incredibly rich these days?

You realize Paul McCartney has had 45+ year career after The Beatles right?

Sure. But I read an article that said he was the richest man in Britain. After the Queen and Richard Branson.

How? Were The Wings really that successful?

Not hating , just curious.

TrivialPursuit said:

phoenixrising said:

In an interview he said that he didn't own purple rain or when doves cry, and he was the one who wrote it and played the instruments and sand on it...so why shouldn't he own it. The Beatles don't own their hits and sir Paul won't for another couple of years. The stones don't own their early hits. It's the way a band got signed ...Prince fought to change that system, that type of contract. I forget the length of time but after many decade an artist gets back the rights to their songs. Prince didn't want his songs used in commercials or movies without his permission. He also didn't want other artists recording his songs once he put that song out to the public. He felt he did the song, now move on

There are a few flaws in this argument.

First, Prince got his earlier catalog back a couple of years ago or so (maybe more?) once the For You and Prince albums copyright expired with the record company. Part of the remasters deal from 2014 was that he got more of his masters back Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, and more,while agreeing to remaster them for a staggered re-release (which we are sorta seeing the first two of those this month and next month).

The time of ownership reversal is 30 or 35 years, when the ownership goes back to the artist.

The Beatles do own their stuff, but not in full. Not since MJ bought it out from under Paul. They own it partly, as noted earlier by another user here. The Stones could easily buy their early catalog back, if they really wanted to (and who's to say they don't already?).

Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles both owned their stuff from early, early on. And that was when it was unheard of for an artist to own their masters. MJ gained control of his stuff early on as well. The idea of ownership wasn't new, it was just highlighted by Prince's fight.

He never said he didn't want others recording his songs. He did argue against the compulsory licensing. However, he also said in 1998 that when people have a good heart and goal about it, it's fine. It's just when people want a "piece of the purple pie", for the sake of it, that he objected. He also objected when folks changed his lyrics (I think he talked abou Ginuwine's "When Doves Cry", if memory serves).

35 years

This discussing is related to the copyright of the sound recording

Every song has two copyrights - the sound recording and the composition's copyright

the sound recording copyright is what people are discussing when you hear the talk about him getting the right back to his masters

the copyright for the composition is what people are referring to when they talk about publishing

I'm quite sure The Beatles do not own any of their publishing but a lot of people who put this information out don't know abything about how publishing works to begin with so it's hard to say for sure if the information out there is fully accurate - they could own the songwriter's portion of the publishing

A question you must ask yourself, "Would The Beatles' music be as big as it is today if these mega corporations didn't have such a stake in it?"

This all goes back to my famous thread - http://prince.org/msg/7/422575?pr

KoolEaze said:

Thizz said:

You realize Paul McCartney has had 45+ year career after The Beatles right?

Sure. But I read an article that said he was the richest man in Britain. After the Queen and Richard Branson.

How? Were The Wings really that successful?

Not hating , just curious.

Paul McCartney has written the most #1 hits ever. His wealth is estimated to be about $1 billion USD

Max Martin and him are the only songwriters ever to top the charts over a 20 year time span. During the 70s there was a joke that the Wings were so big that the youth of the day didn't know that Paul McCartney was with The Beatles prior. In addition to all of his post Beatles work he also owns one of the largest private publishing collections in the world, in which he essentially bought up the rights for his idols publishing (Buddy Holly), he also owns the publishing for Broadway works like Annie

I'm not sure if he owns any percentage of The Beatles publishing, which is said to be owned by Sony/ATV but The Beatles equally split a hefty royalty percentage on the rights to their masters which is owned by Universal which bought out EMI, these rights were subject to a renegotation after a late 80's lawsuit against EMI regarding music being used in Nike commercial. With both of these megalith corporations (Sony on the publishing side and Universal on the masters side) sharing an equal stake in the rights to their music The Beatles work is likely going to be highly regarded for a long time as both of these companies have an incentive to promote them

If you picture the music publishing business as a Monopoly game board - owning the rights to The Beatles publishing is like owning Boardwalk

Thizz said:

funksterr said:

It was a stupid fight from the beginning, throughout, and to the end.

That might be the stupidest comment I've ever read

Sorry, it was a gigantic waste of time. Prince's early passing, imo, is due to it.