I was wondering what musicians are paid for (Queen, or everybody else). I thought of the following things:
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[li]A share of the wins of every sold CD/DVD/vinyl, etc.
[li]Something for every cover somebody else releases (ex. We Are The Champions by Robbie Williams)
[li]Something, if they collaborate for a song from another album (ex. what Brian would have got, if his guitars were on Chinese Democracy)
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But how does it work in the second point - did Robbie Williams go to Queen and ask, or did he go to the recording company and asked? And what if somebody just plays a Queen song in concert without releasing it? On the one hand he/she entertains his/her public with Queen's music, on the other hand a street musician does the same...
Does somebody here know how the whole thing works (or at least partially)?
You are asking a lot of different things.
When it comes to income from recordings there is two different types of royalties: royalties for the people that get the credits of writing the song (music, lyricks and/or both) and for musicians that actually play on the recording (wether they get credited or not). Producers are most of the time considered to get a part from the 'writing'-credits, a part btw that is much bigger then the part for the performing musicians on the track.
These royalties mean money every time the recording in question is played on the radio, tv or anywhere else.
What any of these people make on the sales of records is totally dependant on what they agreed on with their record company. The record company gets the income from sales. The artist get's his or her share from the company - if they had a good deal with them of course.
The construction of how company's pay artists has a million different possibilities depending on the contract they have with eachother. Possibility is indeed a share in the sales, other one is that a company offers X-amount of money for the artist to record X-amount of albums, or a combination of the two... etc)
Playing coverversions in a live situation is always free.
Releasing coverversions (wether it is a studio recording or a live recording) is never free. What it costs, if you get permission or not is up to the people that own the rights to the song. (Could be the recordcompany, could be the artist themselves - again depending on their contracts and agreements between eachother).
But, you don't HAVE to ask permission to the writer of the song to release a cover version. Although it is polite to do so..
If you pay for it, and give a percentage to the writer(s) it's covered
FriedChicken wrote:
Well, Jeroen answered it all..
But, you don't HAVE to ask permission to the writer of the song to release a cover version. Although it is polite to do so..
If you pay for it, and give a percentage to the writer(s) it's covered
Not necessarily, no. But you do need to obtain a mechanical license in order to be allowed to release the song legally. Usually that can be done through agencies like the Harry Fox Agency in the US, but not 100% always. Otherwise, you can try and approach the band's label or whoever.
In Germany you pay for every public performance of copyrighted material, even if you are in a student band. The money is collected by an agency called GEMA. Usually the money is in the ticket price or the promoter of the event pays the fees.
About releasing cover versions: You need permission if you change anything (for example Brian May did not get permission for his altered version of the John Lennon Song "Dream Is Over" to be realeased on the Brixton Academy CD) or if you sample something (see AOBTD riff in "Ice, Ice Baby). This explains that there are numerous ABBA cover versions but only one sample ("Gimme Gimme Gimme" in Madonna's Hung Up): ABBA never gave permission for the sampling of their songs, it was the only time.
Even if you have permission, there can be legal complications as in the (in)famous Rolling Stones vs The Verve case when The Verve did have permission to sample an unknown orchestral version of "The Last Time" and ended up paying ALL songwriter AND publisher royalties to Jagger/Richard and their 1970s mangement for using more of the sample thans had been agreed on - although Jagger /Richard had not even written "The Last Time", it's a cover of an old American gospel song which was no longer copyrighted. Just an example how old, greedy multi millionaires cannot get enough and rip off an upcoming young band who wrote a very successful and highly praised song on some legal pretense . The Stones themselves had not written an equally successful song for decades at the time. I never spent a single cent on any Stones product after that.