(the following is assuming small changes in part of a song)

Lets say you go into a recording studio to record professionally

and all of a sudden the producer says "change this melody here to this"

then the recording engineer or any other staff there says "wouldn't it better to change this lyric to this"

do they now own part of your song if you listen to them?

and now comes to my mind metallica black album i think it was, as far i remember in the video documentary bob rock was helping metallica with some aspects of the songs but he wasn't included as part of songwriting

so maybe there's an agreement that songwriters can reach with producers/staff beforehand that any intervention with them won't give them credit?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 7, 2024

As far as I know before production they make a written agreement that outlines the scope of their roles and how credits will be distributed. Then the person who changes the lyric acts more like a ghost writer.
They agree on crediting James as a writer even if Bob Rock himself changed the lyric to a huge degree or even wrote the entire lyric himself. The same can apply to ownership, like they agree on ownership on paper even if it's different in practice.

 

yep mostly depends on the agreement... sometimes, as a producer, you still get no writing credits even if you change most of the song arrangment and lyrics... because it's your job to do that...

 

This could valuable for you :

 

Yup, the songwriter is usually credited more. That was a problem with the band Smashing Pumpkins. They all play the songs, but one guy gets more money.
It needs to be defined before anything happens or a law suit comes later.

 

It's not that the 'songwriter is credited more', they ARE the songwriter. It doesn't matter who plays on the song, the person that wrote and registered the song owns it plain and simple. If I cover The Beatles Helter Skelter, George's Estate and Ringo don't have any claims to get paid..Why do you think The Who still hasn't stopped touring? Pete Townshend wrote all their songs, Roger Daltrey don't get paid shit unless he's playing live. Ace Frehley might have left Kiss in 1982 but the dude still gets paid bank for all his songs they still play, and the fact that he owns and designed the KISS logo.

As far as Smashing Pumpkins, at least with Siamese Dream, Billy and Jimmy made 98% of that album themselves with Butch Vig, Mellon Collie and the following ones are pretty much in the same boat.

 

Gene Roddenberry wrote the lyrics to the Star Trek theme so he could get song writing credits and royalties anytime the song played - even the instrumental version.

 

That's exactly what I meant and that was also the problem with Smashing Pumpkins. The other band members felt their egos trampled, because they were not equal to Billy. Which is true, because they were not the songwriters.
Those old rock "heroes" don't know anything else anyway. I don't need to see Ozzy anymore.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 7, 2024

from what i seen/watched, ozzy was coming up with very good melody lines that the lyricists were being inspired from.

he could have be singing while mumbling words and they would use some of what he said to write the lyrics

 

That must have been a while ago before he turned into a caricature of himself. Last thing I saw was Ozzy on stage not knowing on which planet he is on. A lot of those burned guys are doomed to go on and it's embarrassing sometimes.

 

yess this happened to a local band here.
they were pretty famous where i'm from and the vocalist thought he deserved more than the other members so he actually stole money from the other members for years. then he died a feww years ago of cocaine overdose.

but i think this case is worse because the vocalist didn't even make the songs by himself he just made the lyrics

i think this of mentality of lead member/vocalist/songwriter getting a bigger slice is kinda common.

which makes sense to me if the guy is the songwriter, otherwise im not sure

 

this happened to me already, one or two times.
i didn't give the guy any credits because they were really minor changes.

and as it was said before, it wasnt in the agreement either.
but i'd probably credit him if it made a huge difference

 

From what I heard it is, but it depends. I got this from a podcast with Billy Corgan in which he explained that this is the norm and caused conflict. They were on a big label where everything is already regulated. That local band was probably dividing the loot from gigs among themselves without anyone above them and then it got weird.

 

here in the U.S. theres a whole pre-release process for this (if youre on an indie or major label especially); where stuff gets cleared for said release, after the tracklisting has been decided

for multiple reasons i wont get into but like one is for merchandising and distribution. making linear notes for physical copies and printing covers costs, and you only have a certain amount of time before it can be changed. if you fuck up its pricey and time consuming

so professionally, that agreement on which rights given would be reached is finalized in that time window; for reasons like that and others. Metallica being on the mainstream side that was definitely the case

 

Last edited: Apr 7, 2024

oh yeah, true. forgot about that!

 

Last edited: Apr 8, 2024