RHCP sell catalog $140 million

[Gil Bang 26048]

[Pato del Muerto 52615]

I don’t understand why these various song catalogs are worth the money being paid for them.  But I guess I also don’t know how much the songs earn in residuals every year. 
 

Maybe a lot, as the estates of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson still do well I believe. 

[CooterBrown 18032]

I think it’s the song licensing for TV, film, and commercials that really pays well.

For example, Disney paid $4.9M to license Immigrant Song for the Thor Ragnarok trailer. No one is paying that for RHCP songs but they’re still getting six figures a pop.

[immamac 43163]

Considering people are selling NFTs of worthless garbage for 69M this seems stupid and they should gire their business manager. 

[BurntOrange&White 40044]

11 minutes ago, immamac said:

Considering people are selling NFTs of worthless garbage for 69M this seems stupid and they should gire their business manager. 

This. That seems really low 

[jimmyjazz 46219]

I am laughing my ass over teakettle at the idea of Anthony Kiedis making a shit-ton more money as a "musician".  Jesus.

Regarding "six figures a pop", yeah.  I know for a fact Spoon banked $300K for a tune maybe 15 years ago, and they weren't exactly household names then.  Big ad, but still . . .

[Dennis Taylor 18875]

9 hours ago, immamac said:

Considering people are selling NFTs of worthless garbage for 69M this seems stupid and they should gire their business manager. 

At least they're getting more than double that for their worthless garbage 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6559]

So how long until I get to hear “Give it Away” in a Taco Bell by one taco get one free commercial?  I don’t blame any of these musicians for cashing out either.  I would do the same.

[Bateshorn 9942]

There’s a fuck ton of money in licensing.  I was reading an article the other day about how 90s shows that didn’t nail down Permanent licensing now are having to overdub generic music because the licensing is so expensive.  They cited Abba as being particularly expensive to license.  It’s why WKRP for years was basically unavailable because the rights had expired. 

Also, the Chili peppers suck.  

Edited May 4, 2021 by Bateshorn

[smuggs 9353]

1 minute ago, Bateshorn said:

There’s a fuck ton of money in licensing.  I was reading an article the other day about how 90s shows that didn’t nail down Permanent licensing now are having to overdub generic music because the licensing is so expensive.  They cited Abba as being particularly expensive to license.

Also, the Chili peppers suck.  

Schmitts Gay is a good example. The original skit was set to Beautiful Girls. The rebroadcasts since are set to some generic rock guitar riff. VH made the skit, IMO.

 

 

[Bogeywon 2519]

7 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

 

Also, the Chili peppers suck.  

This

[GhostOfTomJoad 9358]

That seems like the kind of deal that gets a lot of C-suite level employees canned. Unless I'm overlooking just how many retailers are gonna pay to have "give it away, give it away, give it away now" play during their ads for doorbuster sales.

[noharleyyet 2852]

11 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

There’s a fuck ton of money in licensing.  I was reading an article the other day about how 90s shows that didn’t nail down Permanent licensing now are having to overdub generic music because the licensing is so expensive.  They cited Abba as being particularly expensive to license.  It’s why WKRP for years was basically unavailable because the rights had expired. 

Also, the Chili peppers suck.  

..so much this.

[Deej 76944]

24 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

That seems like the kind of deal that gets a lot of C-suite level employees canned. Unless I'm overlooking just how many retailers are gonna pay to have "give it away, give it away, give it away now" play during their ads for doorbuster sales.


 

And Tom Petty's estate makes even more money from "Dani California".

Edited May 5, 2021 by Deej

[C-Man 27281]

I am laughing my ass over teakettle at the idea of Anthony Kiedis making a shit-ton more money as a "musician".  Jesus.
Regarding "six figures a pop", yeah.  I know for a fact Spoon banked $300K for a tune maybe 15 years ago, and they weren't exactly household names then.  Big ad, but still . . .

I wouldn’t say I hate RHCP but I do dislike them very much. Pepper Theft, however, I like very much.

Don’t they make money every time somebody streams a song of theirs on Spotify or Apple Music or Pandora? That shit adds up. Still, $140M seems like a lot.

[Bateshorn 9942]

8 hours ago, C-Man said:

I wouldn’t say I hate RHCP but I do dislike them very much. Pepper Theft, however, I like very much.

Don’t they make money every time somebody streams a song of theirs on Spotify or Apple Music or Pandora? That shit adds up. Still, $140M seems like a lot.

The money from streaming is negligible.  Jason Isbell has talked about how laughably small his spotify checks are.

[TwiceHorn 31543]

2 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

The money from streaming is negligible.  Jason Isbell has talked about how laughably small his spotify checks are.

David Lowery (Camper Van, Cracker) is an Ed. D. and professor of music business at UGA.  He used to have a blog discussing problems with royalties, etc.  Looks like it's a community blog now.  https://thetrichordist.com/

[jimmyjazz 46219]

Huh.  I didn't know Lowery had completed his doctorate.  We used to message back and forth about stock options, he's very fascinated by that world (and just as battle-hardened as I am, he probably stopped "trading" them (losing money on them) about when I did).

 

[Gil Bang 26048]

The money from streaming is negligible.  Jason Isbell has talked about how laughably small his spotify checks are.

David Crosby bitches about it regularly

[Deej 76944]

The streaming services are probably why bands are unloading their catalogs. They are getting fucked.

[CooterBrown 18032]

Just curious on how this works. When the RHCP tour, do they have to pay royalties to the new music owners for each public performance of these songs? If I’m not mistaken, venues are supposed to report setlists for this very reason. If so, how is that rate set?

[Sbbruin 21898]

On 5/5/2021 at 1:37 PM, Gil Bang said:

David Crosby bitches about it regularly

Among many other things.

[Deej 76944]

11 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Just curious on how this works. When the RHCP tour, do they have to pay royalties to the new music owners for each public performance of these songs? If I’m not mistaken, venues are supposed to report setlists for this very reason. If so, how is that rate set?

Hopefully, they will never play live again. 

[jimmyjazz 46219]

3 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Just curious on how this works. When the RHCP tour, do they have to pay royalties to the new music owners for each public performance of these songs? If I’m not mistaken, venues are supposed to report setlists for this very reason. If so, how is that rate set?

Unless an exception is granted, yes.  When a band covers a song, in theory the venue/club needs to report it to the publisher (presumably through Harry Fox Agency).

[ultimaton 2982]

On 5/4/2021 at 11:55 PM, C-Man said:

I wouldn’t say I hate RHCP but I do dislike them very much. Pepper Theft, however, I like very much.

Don’t they make money every time somebody streams a song of theirs on Spotify or Apple Music or Pandora? That shit adds up. Still, $140M seems like a lot.

I think Apple's average pay per stream is literally a penny, and they're paying roughly double what Spotify and Amazon are paying. Pandora and Youtube are something like a 10th of a cent per stream. It's absurd.

I actually like Blood Sugar Sex Magik and One Hot Minute, but I don't think I've even heard literally anything they've done since Stadium Arcadium, and that was, what, 15 or 16 years ago?

[jimmyjazz 46219]

They definitely need to write more songs about California.

[CurlyDumps 4485]

On 5/4/2021 at 6:57 AM, Bateshorn said:

Also, the Chili peppers suck.  

Thirded.

I think I saw that fucking Beavis & Butthead Do America music video like 500 times in the mid 90's. What a wretched, wretched song.

[DougO 5256]

...weird double post.

Edited May 20, 2021 by DougO

[DougO 5256]

Would have been more money, but they insisted on including the ones where Kiedis decides to try singing melodies.

[Dennis Taylor 18875]

On 5/6/2021 at 7:27 PM, Deej said:

Hopefully, they will never play live again. 

Not getting enough love...

[Hanrahan 1306]

Huh.  I didn't know Lowery had completed his doctorate.  We used to message back and forth about stock options, he's very fascinated by that world (and just as battle-hardened as I am, he probably stopped "trading" them (losing money on them) about when I did).
 

You sound like you think you’re fancy.

[Hanrahan 1306]

Thirded.
I think I saw that fucking Beavis & Butthead Do America music video like 500 times in the mid 90's. What a wretched, wretched song.

You are a horrible waste of a human being.

[Celery Man 21002]

On 5/6/2021 at 11:21 PM, jimmyjazz said:

Unless an exception is granted, yes.  When a band covers a song, in theory the venue/club needs to report it to the publisher (presumably through Harry Fox Agency).

Unless I’m mistaken, this is covered under a performance license (ASCAP/BMI/SESAC) and not a mechanical (Harry Fox). The performance rights organizations (BMI/ASCAP/SESAC) sell a blanket license (use whatever songs from our catalog that you want!) to the venue. For a bar it’s probably based on some formula, and for huge venues they probably hammer it out specifically. The PROs try to get as much money as they can from venues, radio, tv, strangely not movie theaters, etc, use a combination of tracking and reported data to assign performance credits (local bar isn’t sending in setlists, they use other data as a proxy), and then they divvy up the money to the songwriters and publishers. You typically belong to one PRO and they are the one cutting you a check. My super hipster buddy was a member of SESAC and I always thought that was perfect. BMI and ASCAP are similarly enormous and cover like 90% of music.

Harry Fox you pay for the license if you want to cover a song on your album, and it’s a statutory rate. ~9 cents per copy last I checked, which is long enough for that to have changed and long enough for the nature of mechanical licensing to have changed.

Source: I can’t remember the names of the books but I have them on my shelf and Ed Fair gave me an A on the paper. Also I went through the effort of including the forms for my $37 from ASCAP this year on my taxes and TurboTax was like “lol bro it’s fine don’t worry about it”

Edited May 21, 2021 by Celery Man

[Born to Run 6569]

They definitely need to write more songs about California.

They got you fam

https://thehardtimes.net/news/9074/

[PRONG HORN 3158]

19 hours ago, Hanrahan said:

You sound like you think you’re fancy.

 

He's the resident fancy boy on the music board.  There is not really a close, or far second.  

 

[jimmyjazz 46219]

You're damn right I'm fancy.

[topochico 1049]

While I agree the Chili Peppers have become a beating lately. The Uplift Mofo Party Plan was a great album for high school aged TChico that had been stuck listing to Radio Top 40 hits of the 80's.  Plus, my completely crappy bass playing can be blamed directly on Flea. 

Edited May 21, 2021 by topochico

[topochico 1049]

Well, I went back and listened to that album over the weekend. Those guys were singing about California back then too. Damn it. 

[tbone_ 14181]

Regarding cover licenses, if some dude with a guitar stands up at a bar and play 45-50 cover songs in a row, are royalties technically supposed to be paid for that?

[Bogeywon 2519]

On 5/24/2021 at 1:58 PM, tbone_ said:

Regarding cover licenses, if some dude with a guitar stands up at a bar and play 45-50 cover songs in a row, are royalties technically supposed to be paid for that?

That would be a great conversation

hello mr musician thanks for playing. 
we owe you $250 for the 4 hours of entertainment but you owe RCA  $125,000 for all the covers you used. So venmo PayPal cash?

[jimmyjazz 46219]

The venue needs to take out the license.  If they choose not to, then they should tell you not to play cover songs.  If you do, I believe the liability is theirs.

DISCLAIMER:  I am in no way a lawyer, much less one experience in IP/copyright law.  Ask an IP lawyer what your risk is.  @TwiceHorn

[Ogie Ogilthorpe 639]

On 5/7/2021 at 8:59 AM, jimmyjazz said:

They definitely need to write more songs about California.

 

[Celery Man 21002]

licenses for the live music is required from the venue owner, who procures them by paying annually for a blanket license from BMI and ASCAP

This is a thing that venues do and don't make a big deal out of. There are some kinda egregious stories about ASCAP lawyers and like... cub scout campfire music, but for the most part when there's some story about "poor venue owner is shaken down by music industry lawyers" it's someone who turned their coffeeshop into a live music venue without doing any research at all into what is required, or who generally has a stance of "you can't make me pay for things this is america". I always think those stories are at least a little bit a bummer not because I love fancy ASCAP lawyers but because, of all the things that people have to pay for to use music, publishing royalties (royalties for the song not the recording) are the things that most frequently put money in the pocket of actual musicians/songwriters.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Celery Man

[TwiceHorn 31543]

On 5/25/2021 at 4:52 PM, jimmyjazz said:

The venue needs to take out the license.  If they choose not to, then they should tell you not to play cover songs.  If you do, I believe the liability is theirs.

DISCLAIMER:  I am in no way a lawyer, much less one experience in IP/copyright law.  Ask an IP lawyer what your risk is.  @TwiceHorn

I don't know that much about the day to day aspects of the  music business and royalties.  When it devolves into a dispute, I can usually grok that and have a little bit of experience with it.

But generally speaking, there are several rights that copyright secures: 

• the reproduction right to make copies of the work, whether that be sheet music or "phonorecords"
• the distribution right, to distribute copies of the work, which includes the "mechanical" royalty, which applies to distribution/performance that does not involve making a copy or necessarily a public performance; this is what radio stations, juke box owners, and streaming companies pay, 
• the right to publicly perform the work

These are separate rights.  The record company generally holds the reproduction right and the right to distribute phonorecords (the physical copies), while performing rights orgs (BMI, ASCAP, etc.) generally hold the public performance right.  The "mechanical" royalty is set by the Copyright Royalty Tribunal/Board and collected and distributed by the Copyright Office.  Having the right to do one (make copies) does not generally include the other (to publicly perform).

[Celery Man 21002]

once upon a time the record company would own none of the publishing (rights related to the song rather than the recording), but would include language that they don't need to pay you (combination songwriter/recording artist) publishing royalties for the music you write for the albums you are under contract to them for. but maybe you are signed to Warner or a Warner imprint, and then you are heavily incentivized to sign a publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music (a music publishing company) where they would pay you money up front for 50% (the publishers half) of the rights to your music. And maybe Warner Chappell Music would actually do work to get your music placed and out there sending money home in the mail. As the music industry collapsed it became more common that you would be signing with 360 Records and in order to land that deal you would have to also sign with 360 Music Publishing and they would do fuck all but take half of your publishing royalties. And they would also make you sign a deal with 360 Merchandising who would handle keeping some of your t shirt money and maybe concert revenue. I'm not sure how that's balanced out in the past half decade or so as more moderately successful artists have the ability to say "nah" and do their own thing entirely.

[TwiceHorn 31543]

6 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

once upon a time the record company would own none of the publishing (rights related to the song rather than the recording), but would include language that they don't need to pay you (combination songwriter/recording artist) publishing royalties for the music you write for the albums you are under contract to them for. but maybe you are signed to Warner or a Warner imprint, and then you are heavily incentivized to sign a publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music (a music publishing company) where they would pay you money up front for 50% (the publishers half) of the rights to your music. And maybe Warner Chappell Music would actually do work to get your music placed and out there sending money home in the mail. As the music industry collapsed it became more common that you would be signing with 360 Records and in order to land that deal you would have to also sign with 360 Music Publishing and they would do fuck all but take half of your publishing royalties. And they would also make you sign a deal with 360 Merchandising who would handle keeping some of your t shirt money and maybe concert revenue. I'm not sure how that's balanced out in the past half decade or so as more moderately successful artists have the ability to say "nah" and do their own thing entirely.

That's true, also.  I left that out.

Every time you add an author, it becomes a new copyright, or, more accurately a new work.

So you might have a copyriight for the lyrics, one for the music/arrangement, another for a produced recording, where the authors are, respectively, the "lyricist," the "songwriter" (often the same person or persons), then add the "producer" and "sound engineers" and any musicians that aren't songwriters.  And so on and so forth.