Music is considered to be a joint work when one or more artists have collaborated to create it. As a result of joint ownership, one songwriter will not be entitled to exploit the copyright in the music without the permission of the other songwriter(s), and may be deemed to have infringed copyright if they do so.
Often, bands have one or two central songwriters. These artists may present the skeleton of the songs for the rest of the group to work on. However, the other band members may claim that they also have joint ownership of the music as they collaboratively work together to arrange, develop and complete the final track or record.
Proving joint ownership can mean big money for successful artists. However it is not always cut and dried in a court of law – the artists claiming joint ownership must be able to prove that their contribution significantly influenced and impacted the final recording.
For example, in 1999, three members of the English pop band Spandau Ballet unsuccessfully sued their film-star band member and songwriter Gary Kemp, demanding a share of Kemp’s songwriting royalties. Band members Tony Hadley, Steve Norman, and John Keeble alleged that they were joint authors in the band’s songs.
Unfortunately for Spandeau Ballet, the courts decided that they had not made a ‘significant and original contribution to the creation of the work’ but that the published songs were a direct interpretation and recording of the songs initially presented to the group in rough format by Kemp.
Similarly, it is important to know that record producers do not have any automatic claim in copyright, even though their suggestions and arrangements can be vital to the commercial success of songs. Rather, it is common these days that producers negotiate for a small percentage in royalties, and in rare circumstances may also insist in a copyright share. Such entitlements however are specifically negotiated and agreed on a contractual basis.
While agreement on how the royalties are split can vary depending on various contractual arrangements an equal split between co-writers is most common. Bands comprising of one or two songwriters will regularly have a sharing agreement. A typical scenario may be that half of a songs income is kept by the writer(s) whilst the other half is divided between all band members. The songwriters however will still be the copyright owners of the songs.
At the end of the day, artists, bands and co-writers are free to make their own decisions as to how copyright ownership and royalties are to be split. However, given the ever-changing nature of the music industry, it is fundamental that any discussions and agreements around co-writing, copyright and royalties are formalised in a written agreement.
BY DAN CHISHOLM
