U would think they'd be lining up to release some of his songs that would be hits but he didnt release as singles?

There have been a fair amount of Prince covers...I think he tends to discourage people covering his stuff on their albums, but I honestly don't know how much control he has over it.

There's a plethora of covers out there from Sonic Youth to Art Of Noise to Alicia whatsername.

Tons.

He has no say over the covers - except, maybe on the unreleased stuff. I don't know what kind of hoops you'd have to jump through to do a cover of something like "Schoolyard".

origmnd said:

I hope not. I can't afford to pay him if he sued me...

otan said:

Not true. The songwriter has the right to veto any cover version. He has stopped plenty, especially in the Hip Hop genre...

The songwriter has the right to veto any cover version
I don't think so, unless there's a lyric/ music change

An artist doesn't have the right to stop anyone from covering his/her songs. Once a song has been put out in the public forum, all anyone, including me and you, has to do is pay royalties on said song. Prince has the right to veto teh use of his master recordings along with WB since they are the actual owners. Masters and teh song aren't one and the same.

Didnt he turn down Elvis Costello's cover of Pop Life??? It pissed off Elvis Costello enough to record "The Bridge I Burned".

NME said:

from my understandin, he didn't want folks usin samples of his songs in that instance...

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

As long as the songs aren't fundamentally changed, no artist can stop cover versions.

Thus P (and anyone) CAN stop samples being used, and stop people like Weird Al messing about with them.

1p1p1i3 said:

He cannot stop samples or Weird Al covers either if they pay him. Are you not listening to Prince complain about how unfair public license is to him ?

he can stop samples. it uses the master recording which takes permission. he cant, however, stop someone from rerecording his songs and them doing an interpolation of them instead of using the sample. in elvis costellos case, he told elvis that he didn't like his versin of :poplife" which caused elvis to call him an ass and not put it out. Prince did not stop/prevent him from doing this; he did it on his own

otan said:

What Prince song did Sonic Youth cover?

It's funny that he is so...funny about people covering his music, but look at all the covers he has done, on record and live. He's being a hypocrite. He even said in an interview that he once went 2 a party, walked up 2 Ginuwine and told him that he didn't appreciate him doing a cover of "When Doves Cry". He responded that he did the song out of love and respect 4 Prince. Prince told him that he should find other ways 2 do that...

right..?

OK, i must have it wrong. but i was sure he did something / has some sort of power..., perhaps an extremeley high royalty rate, i don't know exactly.

If so, i'm shocked that in this day and age of manufactured, short shelf life pop, that A&R people at record companies haven't already raped the back catalouges of Madonna / Prince / Jackson etc... considering most of the current pop is just trying to emulate the 'x-factor' that these guys brought to music.

actually the more i think of it, the more i'm convinced that Prince does have SOME say in the matter... i'll have a search, but i'm sure i know of a couple of occasions when artists submitted covers to him and he's said no. i'll check...

Ok, right. i've only had two minutes on this. but i've just found something that backs up my theory (slightly) that Prince HAS and DOES use his power of VETO on cover versions.

I did a quick search and i got this link. basically you are all correct, you USUALLY don't have to give permission to cover a song, BUT in some cases / artists rights this isn't the way it works in reality.

http://detritus.net/conta.../0032.html

the relevant part...

"I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it's definitely not a given that you can cover a song. Don't you remember the big flap about Prince and "1999"? He told the Harry Fox agency not to give any permissions to cover that song, that all requests would hvae to go directly to him. Then of course he proceeded to refuse every single request to cover the song..."

interesting.

The legal take is you can cover a song without the artists permission if you don't change the lyrics. You do have to pay them all the publishing royalties. If you do change the lyrics, you have to seek permission.

The charts are always awash with cover versions, it's just that the major labels like to be subtle. They usualy pick songs that aren't that well known. Like Natalie Imbruglia 'Torn' which had been a hit for someone else in Scandanavia. Holly Valance's 'Kiss Kiss' was a big Turkish hit originaly. People like Prince, Madonna or The Beatles - they're just too big to chew on! You're gonna suffer unfortunate comparisons with the original material. Could you imagine a pop idol take on 'Purple Rain'?

For instance, The Beatles & The Rolling Stones were originaly signed up to do covers of r 'n' b songs. They initialy only got to do their own songs on b-sides or albums. All their early hits are covers of people like Chuck Berry & Little Richard. Only really devoted British music fans were aware of the originals at that point in time.

Sampling is 100% concent based for legitimate releases but as samples are most commonly used for club-based music, producers will test the tracks out in the clubs with white labels before they go ahead with legal clearance. Unsigned artists who just make promos for DJ's don't have 2 worry about such complexities, but if they suddenly find the major labels are interested in their club hit, there can be trouble. One good example was the act Space Cowboy who did a dance bootleg of 'I Would Die For You'. Fatboy Slim loved it and signed it up but the official word was 'NO', so they replaced Prince's vocal with a soundalike. Hey Presto!, it's a cover now, not a sample and PP can fuck off! The same thing happened with Black Legend when they sampled Barry White.


In the UK there are now many specialist legal firms dedicated to sample clerance. James Brown has a legal team checking new releases for uncleared samples. If someone has a hit with an unleared sample, they can end up in some serious debt and it happens! Kenny 'Dope' Gonzalez put out a dance 12" under the name Bucketheads with a b-side featuring a sneaky sample of Chicago 'Street Player'. Who cares about a b-side he thought? It was the b-side that got played in the clubs & got a European release as the A-side. As Kenny said "The shit ended up costing me thirty thousand dollars".

i understand the "songwriter" has no pwer of VETO once the song is in the public domain, but could the PUBLISHER make the song 'unavailable' or simply refuse permission...?

it's just i've been looking around and it seems you have to let the publishers know. i was wondering if the songwriter owned their own publishing company, (or were in a very powerful deal with their chosen publishing company), could they then make is at least difficult for someone to cover a particular song. even if it was using a high royalty rate to price the song out of their budget...?

Say Rick James recorded ... "Delirious"
and went through all the legal fees etc.

If the publishers , master owner ,etc all
Ok'd it, COULD/WOULD Prince have the right to veto it?

Even if it was out of spite...?

To respond to the first post of the thread, as Otan said, there are literally a ton of Prince covers out there. By a very wide ranging group of artists and groups in different genres. Some obscure, some big names.

To respond to someone (can't remember your name I read a lot of posts and didn't respond to a specific one) who said something about covering songs from Prince's vault. That's something he will always have 100% veto power over.

You cannot acquire the license for the very first recording of a song without the authorization of the copyright owner. The copyright owner is the songwriter. This is called "First Use."

Once the song is recorded, anyone can get a license to cover it, as long as they pay the statutory rate. UNLESS, they plan to make a significant change to the arrangement of the song - then they have to have permission from the copyright owner. I believe, but am not 100% sure, that this is the reason Elvis Costello couldn't release his version of "Pop Life."


`
[This message was edited Mon Oct 6 17:43:13 PDT 2003 by Supernova]

daned said:

Whilst it is true that the Beatles cut their teeth performing such covers (which also featured on their albums), to suggest that all their early hits were covers of people like Chuck Berry and Little Richard is plainly wrong.

Technically, their first official single release was 1962's cover of 'My Bonnie' with Tony Sheridan, although it only charted after they had had true success with subsequent hits, when Polydor tried to cash in.

The release of their second single, 'Love Me Do', in 1962 on Parlophone is recognised by most people as their first single. Not only was it self-penned, but so were (in release order) 'Please Please Me', 'From Me To You', 'She Loves You', 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'A Hard Day's Night', 'I Feel Fine', 'Ticket To Ride', 'Help', 'We Can Work It Out' / 'Day Tripper','Paperback Writer', ... well, the list goes on, but not one single A-side cover song from the day they signed until when they folded.

Of course, in addition to this the Beatles also released EPs, usually comprising 4 songs, which would also chart. Polydor released the 'cash-in' EP 'My Bonnie' on the same day as the first Parlophone EP, but it backfired and failed to chart. Of the 'official' EPs released through Parlophone, the first, 'Twist and Shout' had two A-side covers, but aside from this and 1964's 'Long Tall Sally', released to satisfy the incredible demand for more material, the other 11 EPs released during their existence all had their own compositions on the A-sides.


(In an attempt to cash in, Polydor released 3 further singles in 1964 which featured covers from their Hamburg set predating their 1962 emergence, and sometimes with Tony Sheridan. These releases can be described as largely unsuccesful - only one charted - at #29).

Interesting thread - from reading the previous posts, it seems like there is no consensus on the legalities of covering a song, strange, you wouldn't have thought something like this wouldn't have been vague.

I remember a bit in the 'Doors' film when 'Jim Morrison' is really pissed that the rest of the band have allowed 'Light My Fire' to be covered on a tv advert, because he sees it as both a sell-out and diminishing his 'poetry'. Whether this was true or not, it shows how an artist would be keen to see his creations respected, and I would think Prince falls into that category - being a control freak, I doubt he would enjoy anyone covering HIS songs. There again, I once read an interview where he stated he was happy 'The Fugees' had done a cover of 'The Cross' because it showed his music was having an influence on the next generation.

Certainly there are plenty covers of Prince out there - Sinead O'Connor of course being the most famous, but who remembers Simple Minds doing 'Sign O the Times'? Now there's a song you'd think Prince would keep to himself. What about the synth sample on MC Hammer's 'Prey' from When Doves Cry? Anyone hear the cover of 1999/Alphabet Street by Mike Flowers Pops?

Somebody should make a list of all the covers, it's probably very long.
[This message was edited Tue Oct 7 2:50:42 PDT 2003 by metalorange]

So any bum wih a cassette deck could
destroy his music? And Prince couldn't stop them?

remember when the prince tribute album came out and prince released a statement slamming people covering his songs he said something like people pay respect live and we dig that, but then he went on to say he didnt like people covering him so i guess he doesnt have much say in general

its odd that if you change the structure of the song you have to ask?? thats weird?

plus the elvis story is funny, i wonder what it sounded like. it must be annoying to musicians to love prince, then meet him and he annoys them!